Bits Bucket for May 18, 2011
Post off-topic ideas, links, and Craigslist finds here.
The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
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Name:Ben Jones
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
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Realtors Are Liars
Winnah winnah chicken dinnah!
Heh….. us construction guys get to the office at 630am Chile…. I know you know that.
Oh yeah, and I was late this morning.
Used to be part of the 5.00am crowd. Hurt to watch HR walk in at 9.00am, and then organize office parties starting at 5.00pm. They’d always be in awe at the fact most the lower-level workers were on hour 12 of an 8-hour paid day when the beers were cracked open.
Yeah I didn’t have to go through that but most of the guys I interface with in the home office do 70 hr weeks. The difference is that they’ll all have an equity stake(professional class/career track principals) in the firm whereas I will never. I’m ok with that. They’re alot smarter and efficient than us dumb construction guys.
Ain’t no thing, chicken wing.
It’s not as though Realtors are the only folks who ever told a lie.
May 13th, 2011
11:47 AMET
Half of New Testament forged, Bible scholar says
By John Blake, CNN
(CNN) - A frail man sits in chains inside a dank, cold prison cell. He has escaped death before but now realizes that his execution is drawing near.
“I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come,” the man –the Apostle Paul - says in the Bible’s 2 Timothy. “I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith.”
The passage is one of the most dramatic scenes in the New Testament. Paul, the most prolific New Testament author, is saying goodbye from a Roman prison cell before being beheaded. His goodbye veers from loneliness to defiance and, finally, to joy.
There’s one just one problem - Paul didn’t write those words. In fact, virtually half the New Testament was written by impostors taking on the names of apostles like Paul. At least according to Bart D. Ehrman, a renowned biblical scholar, who makes the charges in his new book “Forged.”
“There were a lot of people in the ancient world who thought that lying could serve a greater good,” says Ehrman, an expert on ancient biblical manuscripts.
…
Only half?
+1 My first thought!
The other half is fiction.
+1
+1 Too funny, LOL!
And this is relevant to the HBB how?
We know you hate religion PB, especially Christianity.
Don’t you have some Rancho Bernardo housing stats to post?
Are you afraid of reality? At hbb we are always trying to uncover the lies and expose the truth. I for one appreciate Mr. Professor Bear’s contributions to this blog. We are lucky to have him post interesting articles. Let’s not drive people away like we did to aladinsane.
“Are you afraid of reality?”
No, I just don’ tcome here to read about religion (there are blogs for that). I come here to read about housing and the economy.
Just like I don’t come here to read about Ahnold and his pecadillos.
You might say we are trying to “uncover lies”, I sense that there’s an axe to grind. IF PB has discovered the good news of atheism, good for him. I just find his desire to share his good news no different than an obnoxious Bible Thumper sharing his. Neither belongs on this blog.
I come here mostly because of PB’s great articles and links. Lay off. This place would not be the same without him, so let’s try to not drive him away!
There are countless other entries on here that has nothing to do with housing, but we always come back to it. Get a grip, dude.
Speaking of Ahhhnold, did you see the mug on that woman? It’s like a porche owner renting a kia for a joy ride. Makes no sense.
did you see the mug on that woman? It’s like a porche owner renting a kia for a joy ride. Makes no sense.
Come now. It makes perfect sense. Human sexual attraction involves more than a “mug”.
A bag doesn’t help, sir.
I can see why Maria left. I mean if he’s willing to drive that Kia he will drive anything. I’d hide the family pets. Wow.
Let’s see, were I in my own home after a long day’s work, would I rather bump bellies with a shriveled, self-important sack o’ sticks, or a voluptuous, welcoming, undemanding domestic? Hmmmmmmm.
Why Americans care so much about who does what to consenting whoms, and how, continues to perplex me. Many societies do just fine with familial combinations people here consider remarkable or even aberrant. That the woman (and presumably her son,) was a part of their daily household for twenty years tells us all we need to know.
Sheesh.
They are living vicariously.
“This place would not be the same without him, so let’s try to not drive him away!”
For the record, if the likes of Antonio Villaraigosa, JoeyinCA, Eddie, Gekko, NYCityBoy, and myriad other HBB ad hominem attackers through the years haven’t driven me away, there is a pretty good chance that I won’t be driven away by others’ opinions about my posts. If I ever stop posting here, it will be for other reasons (e.g., the housing bubble is historical, no longer a current event). We aren’t there yet.
“Speaking of Ahhhnold, did you see the mug on that woman? It’s like a porche owner renting a kia for a joy ride. Makes no sense.”
“The Martian Chronicles” by Ray Bradbury?
Religion is creepy. Or better yet,
Religious leaders are liars.
You know if people really took the bible literally, then JC was a test tube baby, and the holy ghost was gods doctor who performed the operation on mary, but then almost no one takes it that seriously…do they?
“And this is relevant to the HBB how?”
‘Realtors Are Liars’
…
‘There were a lot of people in the ancient world who thought that lying could serve a greater good,’
Perhaps lying Realtors actually mean to do good in the world?
And what wasn’t religious about “Real estate always goes up”? This pretty much was THE religion in San Diego when we arrived in the mid-2000s.
At any rate, I don’t hate religion as you assert; but I do notice that many religious folks interpret any statement that questions their faith as hateful.
And what wasn’t religious about “Real estate always goes up”?
Yes. And to such an extreme that makes fundamentalists look like balanced individuals.
Stay golden, cantankerous Pony Boy!(PB) Your article mining rivals Ben’s; although his articles rock as well!
Remember
“no good deed goes unpunished”
“pride goeth over the falls”
No offense intended towards Colo either.
I’m Lutheran and enjoy what church offers my children; Sunday School, comraderie, community building. It’s not all about the almighty God or literal interpretations scripture to me, but creation is a wonderous thing; and we all got here somehow. I have gotten particularly religious after falling out(turned gray, low BP, received epi spike to revive me after vasovagal reaction to anesthesia) once after surgery. Dear lord, “I am sorry for all the slumlording I did, etc”.
“They say he got religion at the end, and I’m glad that he did” Tom T. Hall, I Remember the Day Clayton Delany Died.
I think that most of the sociopaths on wallstreet and major corp CEOs have no belief in God and they might be a little hesitant to engage in their acts if they did. That said many people that profess faith did and do a lot of evil However, Pol Pot, Stalin and Mao killed tens of millions of people based on their ideology, more than all the religious wars combined. Hitler is referred to as a Christian but by the time he had assumed power he as a pagan, that was hostile to “Jew based” Christianity. My belief system is not based on what percentage of Paul’s writings were actually written by him. We don’t even really know whether Obama wrote his own autobiography today so I don’t know how we could prove that amount.
But in a topic closer to home, I think the FED and Obama adminstration who hoped to use QEII to raise asset prices such as homes and stocks without causing inflation, now realises that it has to pick between $5 gas or 10% unemployment on election day 2011. My bet is they pick the $5 gas.
I stand corrected.
I think that most of the sociopaths on wallstreet and major corp CEOs have no belief in God and they might be a little hesitant to engage in their acts if they did.
Please Goldman Sachs was doing “God’s work”
A lot of discourse these days sounds like fundamentalism. Political partisanship is a great example of this.
Quite the contrary, Albuquerque. Most genuinely powerful Captains o’ Industry and elected pols I’ve met are near-fundamentalist in their religious beliefs. It’s almost a superstitious/Asperger’s thing with them inasmuch as it all comes back to their place in the power structure.
They truly believe that their god lead them to their lofty position, and that they, personally, have a responsibility to further that god’s work. The hell is in the details….
Lloyd Blankfein was not being hyperbolic or cynical. I’d not be surprised if he really believes what he said.
“They truly believe that their god lead them to their lofty position”
Maybe, deep down, below their level of awareness, they really believe that they are not worthy of their lofty positions. So invoking God validates their actions to themselves.
It states at the top “post off-topic ideas.” so PB did not do anything wrong. How many times do I have to remind readers of the line under “Bits Buckrt?” it has been several times.
“I’m Lutheran and enjoy what church offers my children; Sunday School, comraderie, community building.”
Same here, though I attend my wife’s church thanks to my agnostic theological views.
But when it comes to iconoclasm and holding up truth to power, Martin Luther is one of my heroes and role models.
Fantasy is fantasy, Colo, and it nearly ALWAYS “serves a higher purpose.”
We buy into whatever our government/church/REsales lady tells us because we think some personal good will come out of doing so. Ultimately it is about self-interest versus blind submission to authority– which is what the ancient myths and parables in the Christian Bible were trying to reconcile with the reality of the day.
Just as we do here.
Pax
“There’s one just one problem - Paul didn’t write those words. In fact, virtually half the New Testament was written by impostors taking on the names of apostles like Paul.”
That’s actually old news. I didn’t think ANY of the New Testament was actually written by the original apostles. As far as I am aware, the earliest written pages of the New Testament date from about a couple hundred years after Christ’s death (though pages from the Old Testament are much older).
Just people in the ancient world?
We’re being overrun by “greater good” liars today.
+ a whole lot
There’s a quote, IIRC from Napoleon, that it’s the victors get to write history. Sadly, if the liars win then the liars will be tomorrow’s heroes. On the same token, what do we really know about those that our society considers heroes?
I blame the liberals.
They showed how you could direct policy by applying pressure to politicians, and how you could choose priorities by mandating/choosing how much money was spent on enforcement.
The Robber Baron class figured out pretty quick that if there was no will or funding for enforcing laws regs, the laws might as well not exist.
That, and they took to heart the old rule “figures don’t lie, but liars figure”. So they pay consultants/think tanks/soothsayers to generate biased research, to offset the biased research generated by their opponents.
But we still give them 6% to sell our homes? What is wrong with us?
How much longer from now until real estate is the “worst investment”?
ECONOMY
MAY 18, 2011
Economic Gains Fail to Revive Housing
By SARA MURRAY
WSJ’s Michael Casey reports April housing starts fell 11%. He also has corporate news regarding Wal-Mart, Home Depot and Hewlett-Packard. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, FILE)
New-home construction fell last month as a slowly growing economy has yet to revive the moribund housing market.
Construction of homes and apartments dropped 10.6% in April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 523,000, compared with a month earlier, the Commerce Department said Tuesday. Home starts are down 23.9% from the same month a year ago, reflecting a market that has struggled as foreclosures drive down prices and builders face financing difficulties.
“It’s flat at the bottom,” said Patrick Newport, an IHS Global Insight economist. “It’s not getting any worse, it’s not getting any better.”
Single-family home building declined last month, falling 5.1% to an annual rate of 394,000. Construction was down in most of the U.S. last month, falling in the South, Midwest and West. In the Northeast, though, single-family home building rose 12.8%. Compared with the same period last year, new single-family home starts were down 30.4%.
Construction of multifamily housing with at least five units, which tends to be more volatile, plunged 28.3% last month.
Measures of future construction offered little hope of a quick turnaround. Building permits fell 4% to an annual rate of 551,000. Permits for single-family homes dropped 1.8%. Permits for multifamily structures with at least five units declined 13.9%.
Economists predict the housing market is in for a slow recovery. Government incentives, such as the first-time home-buyer tax credit, helped home sales last year. But since its expiration, the housing market has faltered.
Ultimately, it will take stronger income and job growth to inspire more families to purchase homes, working through the inventory that accumulated during the downturn. In the meantime, residential construction is likely to weigh on the economic expansion.
While the housing market sputters, other U.S. industries are recovering. A semiannual survey of purchasing and supply executives in manufacturing and service industries showed both expected higher revenue and increased hiring this year, the Institute for Supply Management said Tuesday.
…
Speaking of possibly bad investments; my mother is thinking of paying 100k for a home, which is occupied by responsible, stable, tenants paying $850/mo. Why? Because she wants our family to have an option of having somewhere to go when our foreclosure hits.
Nevermind that we already own another home free and clear. Its also rented at $825/mo to a good tenant. The home we own would require our kids to move; mom does not want that for her happy, well adjusted grandkids.
And I would either manage the place and move into a rental of my own or move in when wife’s foreclosure occurs. (wifes pad is scheduled for auction late August). They have always been big into being prepared. I have always lived for the day with little regard for the future, lucking into a good paying job after college. Good for amassing cash, not so good after I got hurt, as it was a cash only job. Which made me get a teaching license only to find out my body did not agree with that job to well either. I was hurt by a duck duck goose incident, for example.
Home is in good neighborhood, not too many foreclosures around, or used car lots for front yards. It is in good shape. Mom wants to buy it for her peace of mind. With me being only semi-productive and my wife working low-paying jobs, I guess she fears for the roof over our head and wants to help us by purchasing an affordable house, to her, for us to go to and not have to sacrifice our rental income or move the kids into a new school.
It would likely remain affordable to her, not cramp their globetrotting ways, and help her sleep at night. At 100k it is about 3x median income, also about what we make considering the rental income, wife’s income, and my income (33k ish).
Should I let her buy it??
Forgot to say; original owners paid 111k in 1999. Must have heloced the heck out of it to be short saling it now. So selling at same level, or lower, than 12 yrs ago.
“The home we own would require out kids to move; mom doesn’t want that for her happy, well adjusted grandkids.”
Ah, yes, Grandma Fever, an affliction that infects grandmothers everywhere. There is no cure; there is available only a maintenence program that involves perodic grandchildren fixes and the supplier of these fixes must be kept nearby at all times.
LOL
Ah, yes, Grandma Fever, an affliction that infects grandmothers everywhere. There is no cure; there is available only a maintenence program that involves perodic grandchildren fixes and the supplier of these fixes must be kept nearby at all times.
In my family, the grandchildren were NOT fussed over. Which meant that trips to see the grandparents weren’t hyped to the sky.
Instead, we kids were expected to be polite and on our best behavior. Didn’t matter if it was me or my (rather indulged) cousins. We had to be nice to the old folks because, well, they were old.
“He also has corporate news regarding Wal-Mart, Home Depot and Hewlett-Packard.”
Left Ohio asked:
“Could you explain in tomorrow’s bits bucket what exactly happened at HP’s Colorado operations? One of my co-workers from Fort Collins (who is a real Fed, I’m just a contractor) got sh*tcanned from HP after working there for over 20 years. He speaks of HP only with bitterness and profanity so I am hesitant to press for details…”
In a nutshell: HP went from being one of the most admired and ethical corporations, one that treated its employees with respect to an organization that is contemptful of its employees. Not only did the hours become longer and the workloads heavier but pay raises became non existant for all but the “top performers” (i.e the teachers’ pets). If you ever complained about the lack of raises managers would tell you to go find a job somewhere else if you didn’t like it. Of course doing such a thing in Fort Collins meant an hour plus commute to Denver, so most tried to hang on.
The American workforce was too scared to complain. Our local section manager would show us the quartely morale survey results. The non US based sections of our business unit (storage) were VERY unhappy and complained about the lack of pay raises and layoffs. Even India complained about the substandard raises (there is a lot of turnover in Bangalore as HP pays below market wages there).
The US based staff rarely complained, perhaps out of fear that our “secret” surveys weren’t so secret (A friendly manager told me that they knew who said what) and that complainers would receive retaliation (be targetted for layoffs). I know that many people who always had positive annual reviews (including yours truly) were suddenly let go without warning.
Things became especially bad during the Mark Hurd days. Most people I talk to have little hope that things will improve under Apotheker. I have little doubt that the layoffs will resume now that they’ve had a small hiccup (they still made over 2 billion in profit last quarter).
In a nutshell: HP went from being one of the most admired and ethical corporations
Yep, in a nutshell.
one that treated its employees with respect to an organization that is contemptful of its employees.
Yep, in a nutshell.
HP, darn shame it lost it’s
foundersvisionaries.Its interesting that you mention that. That transformation began as soon as Bill Hewlett died. His son Walter tried to stop it, but Carly beat him in the proxy fight and the Hewletts and Packards are now absent from the board of directors.
Gotta cut costs at all costs, just like the (out-of-power-only) deficit hawks scream. It’s simple Math!
Dell is kicking HP to the curb in the latest financial releases…
Maybe some cause and effect?
From what I’ve heard working at Dell isn’t exactly pleasant either. Not that I’m shedding any tears for HP.
Dell is sorta on the mend since they got Michael Dell back. I’m not saying it’s a worker’s paradise, but the company refocused on good products and service instead of the bottom line. When Michael left, they started cost cutting and lost the lead position to HP. Now HP is in the cost cutting game and Dell is back to fundamentals, and Dell is reclaiming the top spot.
It’s a minor demonstration of how focusing on short-term profit and shareholder pandering looks great short term, but can destroy a company long term.
“It’s a minor demonstration of how focusing on short-term profit and shareholder pandering looks great short term, but can destroy a company long term.”
I agree 100%
Looks like I need to see if a Dell fits my needs better than the HPs I’ve been looking at.
I don’t see why not. PCs are commodities these days.
Thanks for providing this background information.
The aerospace OEM I used to work for (which was basically standard industry operating procedure) was to run the staff into the ground by forcing “Mandatory Overtime”, because they didn’t want to hire and train additional help.
This meant everyone was putting in 6-700 hours a year of overtime……some guys had over 1000.
Of course, like every other US manufacturer over the past 20 years, pay raises became non-existant. The old “working a lot harder for less” scenario.
Back in the day, the latest buzzword/management fad was “Problem Solving Work Groups”. One of the first ones they did was on “employee morale and retention”. So they went off for weekly meetings for several months, researching and documenting the issues.
Of course, the problem was:
-Too much overtime, and
-payrates.
We soon learned that any work group that came up with recommendations that required the company to actually spend money, had their report go straight into the round file.
Stupid greedy management was around a long time before greedy unions. And will outlive them.
“It’s flat at the bottom,” said Patrick Newport, an IHS Global Insight economist. “It’s not getting any worse, it’s not getting any better.”
Obviously Patty, it is getting worse.
“global insight economist”…..there’s an oxymoron in there somewhere.
The name of the company is IHS Global Insight. His title is economist. He isn’t a “global insight economist.”
So, he’s an economist with Global Insight, without insight.
“How much longer from now until real estate is the “worst investment”?”
Until the next stock market “correction,” and some comparisons with 2000. Probably associated with a bond market correction, and the end of free money.
How long before there is no such thing as a “best investment?”
How long before there is no such thing as a “best investment?”
—————–
probably forever, since ‘best’ is a relative term. In the future, the best investment might be in silver, or mineral rights, or boxes of instant rice. But there will always be a best.
According to the charts of the “EssenP” 500, there were two major stock depressions, bottoming in both 2003 and 2009. Going back to 1926 wit the Dow, I don’t think you will find instances of three major multi-year stock declines of the same magnitude where each bottom is in the neighborhood as the others. The S&P 500 returned an annual under three percent the last ten years. I challenge you to short it.
“Economic Gains fail to revive Housing”
All the “economic gains” are being sucked up by the top 5%er. Most of those folks who want houses already have them.
As far as the rest of us go, the “lucky ones” who managed to stay in their jobs are doing good to have their pay frozen, while prices on essentials skyrocket.
Those of us who got the opportunity to seek (and find) new employment are working for 20% less than we were two years ago.
Yeah, right……this is “unexpected”.
And here’s even more unexpected news: Tucson house prices went up last month. Thus spake our daily fishwrap.
Story quote:
The median sales price for April was $132,000, according to the latest statistics from the Tucson Association of Realtors Multiple Listing Service. That’s a 17 percent decrease from April 2010.
But it’s a 5.6 percent increase from March, when the median sales price had slid to $125,000. In the Tucson area, the last time median home prices - the point where half of homes sell for less and half sell for more - had dropped that low was in the second half of 2001.
To which I say:
Meanwhile, our median income languishes in the low 30s. Which means that median house prices still have a-ways to fall.
Dead cat bounce.
It failed to revive housing because the “economic gains” were in the Wall St. economy, not the Main St economy.
Marie Antoinette didn’t get it either.
+1 on this theme. It’s not about R vs. D, it’s about a parasitic elite that knows no allegiance to anything beyond it’s own infinite greed, as demonstrated through 21st century corporate-klepto-communist-capitalism.
The Great Recession’s lost generation
By Chris Isidore @CNNMoney May 17, 2011: 5:30 PM ET
Brittney Winters, 23, graduated from Princeton University in 2009 and can’t find a teaching job, despite graduating from a top school.
“When you go to an Ivy League school, you figure this degree will mean something — that it will guarantee you a job,” she said.
Winters has taken on other “survival” jobs to get by, including working at a video rental store.
She now works for a public relations firm in Chicago. But the job is a long commute from her parents’ home, and she’s struggling to fill the gas tank each week.
http://money.cnn.com/2011/05/17/news/economy/recession_lost_generation/ - 45k -
And there is a whole new crop of those grads coming into the labor market this month.
I’m sure Britney could have found a job at a less desireable, low paying school district somewhere in flyover country.
I know a guy in a similar boat, he’s wants to work as a teacher in his hometown of Buffalo, NY. From what he told me the pay scales were pretty good, up to 90K per year I believe. Anyway, there is no hiring there. At the time I heard that the district in Glenwood Springs, CO (home of the famous hot sping pools) was hiring and I shared that with him.
He wasn’t interested and instead chose to start working on a masters degree.
Does she have a problem working in the dirt?
I know where she can make $40.00 and hour planting ‘twolips”
Great.
Another teacher who got into the education profession not:
to help children
because they like working with children
because they want to give children a better future
because they like teaching
But because of:
Great salaries
Gold plated benefits
Insane pensions
Summers off
Tell this guy to find something he loves to do and spare children of 30 years of a bitter public union teacher…
Maybe he just wants to stay in Buffalo?
Actually, he really does like teaching.
Is there anything wrong with wanting to be well paid?
Actually, he really does like teaching.
Looks like he is doing NO teaching at all. How much does he like it?
Is there anything wrong with wanting to be well paid?
Nothing at all. But hoping from DAY ONE you will land a golden ticket public union teaching position or you are not going to teach at all makes me wonder.
Did he look at teaching (in the Buffalo area)
Private schools?
Charter schools?
Catholic Schools?
Tutor?
“Looks like he is doing NO teaching at all. How much does he like it?”
Actually, he does a lot of subbing. Not for $20/hr though. He is very passionate about teaching.
You are missing the point.
2banana thinks that all public employees should be paid like the crew at Wal-Mart or MickieDees. Therefore, anyone who doesn’t want to (or have to) work for WalMart pay and benefits is a lazy, pro-union, worthless slacker.
I’m beginning to think he’s a plant for the US Chamber of Commerce, or the Cato Institute.
I’ve been seeing this for the past two years. Shops wanting experienced mechs with training on type, and pay @$20/hr…..$800 a week. And you have to pack up and move 1500 miles, to garden spots like Spokane, Washington, Charleston, South Carolina, or Uvalde, Texas.
Screw that. I can make more that that, working 20 hours a week locally.
Another teacher who got into the education profession not:
to help children
because they like working with children
because they want to give children a better future
because they like teaching
But because of:
Great salaries
Gold plated benefits
Insane pensions
Summers off
Wow. You don’t even know the guy and are so quick to judge him and assume his motives.
Yes, he wants to stay in Buffalo, where his family lives. He isn’t Catholic or Protestant Fundy, so that precludes most private school gigs (he say’s they aren’t hiring anyway).
He’s doing subbing because it helps him keep his foot in the door while he works on his masters. He also works parttime at a grocery store. The guy is a workaholic. I also don’t blame him for trying to get the best paying gig he can in his profession. I know it’s what I do in mine.
Probably can’t afford to service “Princeton” level student loans on a flyover country salary.
As a general rule, I would say bingo to this, but I thought that Princeton had changed their policy so students with actual financial need wouldn’t have to take out student loans at all. Something about their endowment having gotten so big they could do it and thought it was a better use of the money than anything else. Maybe it was only for kids whose family income was below a certain level.
I guess she could have substantial student loans if her family didn’t need assistance (according to the magic calculations of the financial aid office that assumes parents will impoverish themselves to get the kids through school) but qualified for loans through a more “generous” federal calculation to qualify for loans?
Edububble has some choice comments about the “no loan” policies:
edububble dot com/dpp/?p=479
“”I like to think it was only a minor detour, not a roadblock,” she said.”
Well, in Florida it’s shaping up to be a roadblock. My district is pink-slipping ALL year 1 and 2 teachers. This means Brittney was already “priced out” in 2009, and this isn’t a surprise as we have discussed the education bubble here for a while.
Colo, what’s the pay like for teachers out there? Does everybody hate teachers there like they do here in Florida?
Pink slips galore here in Central Oregon. Redmond is losing plenty; even though all teachers have agreed to give up ten contract work days(5 prep days, 5 instructional). I have personally been pinked twice, once at the coast; once in Eastern OR(not necessarily cuz I suck, more cuz of last hired, first fired). Our kids K-8 is losing two teachers this year; gonna be more blends this year. They take the existing 5th grade classes, for instance, and spread the 4th graders among them, thereby eliminating the need for 4th grade teachers.
Our pay in Oregon is under 40k for the first 5 years, masters or not. And our state requires a masters to stay licensed to teach; I am only good till spring 2013 and I have not started work on it. I am also trying to get my health up to speed, so I can “work” full time again( I have LLed/bought and sold properties over the last decade). Subbing at 20/hr sounds about right for me right now. It’s stable and I work when I feel good, about half time.
“gonna be more blends this year. They take the existing 5th grade classes, for instance, and spread the 4th graders among them, thereby eliminating the need for 4th grade teachers.”
I was in such a class as a 5th grader in the 1950’s.
I was in such a class as a 5th grader in the 1950’s.
See? We’re making progress as a nation.
My favorite year of elementary school was 5th grade. I had a fantastic teacher, and the class was split between 5th and 6th graders. So I got to listen to their lessons as well as my own grade’s. Best school year ever.
I was in a blended classroom in a private school in northern VT. The teacher was the only male among a bunch of nuns. He was excellent.
There was a blended 2/3rd grade class in our last school district. It was considered an honor to be invited into that class. They moved at a greater speed than other classrooms.
Making progress as a nation, indeed. Progressing toward the capitalist utopia that was Victorian England. I hear life in Manchester circa 1855 was paradise city.
“Subbing at 20/hr sounds about right for me right now.”
That’s not bad for subbing. Out here they get about $12/hr.
I know a few private tutors here in Silicon Valley. There seems to be a wide range of hourly rates, but one guy I know (who runs it as a business with his wife) charges $70/hour. However, $40/hour seems more typical.
Most districts are laying off first years as there have been budget cuts (again).
Here’s a link to salary schedules in our district:
http://www.thompson.k12.co.us/Divisions/School_Support/human_resources/salary_schedules.html
Here is where the money is going:
————–
Anti-union law puts Milwaukee teachers union in spotlight
Los Angeles Times | May 18, 2011 | By Nicholas Riccardi
Milwaukee — Last year, Milwaukee’s struggling public school system fired the woman named Wisconsin’s outstanding first-year teacher because of union rules that protect senior teachers and require newer ones to be laid off first.
As it cuts 560 more teaching jobs this year, the district faces a bill more than double its entire $1-billion budget to pay for retired teachers’ health benefits.
For decades, critics have railed against the union.
“Teachers unions do what they’re supposed to do, which is protect teachers,” said Howard Fuller, a former Milwaukee Public Schools superintendent who has fought the union over the district’s voucher program. “In the process of protecting teachers, they make it very difficult to ensure a quality education for the kids. The question is, what do we do about it?”
the district faces a bill more than double its entire $1-billion budget to pay for retired teachers’ health benefits.
unions do what they’re supposed to do, which is protect teachers,” …..“In the process of protecting teachers, they make it very difficult to ensure a quality education for the kids. The question is, what do we do about it?”
Single payer/tax based health-care would fix that problem. Then the unions would not have to “protect” retired teacher’s health insurance.
Do you all realize how many American problems would be solved if we had some kind of single payer health care system?
Do you all realize how many American problems would be solved if we had some kind of single payer health care system?
I sure do!
Matter of fact, I know of a company that’s having to shell out 77% more for the same group coverage for its employees. That’s money that could be used for growing the company.
IMHO, private health insurance is nothing more than highway robbery.
“IMHO, private health insurance is nothing more than highway robbery.”
You’ve got that right, Az Slim. Then when you need it, your claim is denied, and it becomes a living hell getting them to pay it.
We had to drop Kaiser. We couldn’t afford the premium anymore.
This article is a must read:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/14/business/14health.html?scp=6&sq=health%20insurance&st=cse
Health Insurers Making Record Profits as Many Postpone Care
The nation’s major health insurers are barreling into a third year of record profits, enriched in recent months by a lingering recessionary mind-set among Americans who are postponing or forgoing medical care.
If/when I start dating again, I know what my “line” is going to be…..
“Yeah, I don’t look like much, and I’m not rich……
but I gotz health insurance…..”
You may not get quality that way, but I guarantee you’ll get quantity.
Does everybody hate teachers there like they do here in Florida?
You guys are getting really weird up there. Seriously. Whacked. Do you guys realize the stuff coming out of some of your mouths and brains?
This anti-teacher/anti-intellectual stuff is really bizarre.
Who would be behind this “movement”?
It’s like someone wants Americans to be really dumb or something.
It’s like “Hey your a patriot becauz your so damned dum!”
“You guys are getting really weird up there.”
It’s easier to notice from your ex-Pat vantage point.
“This anti-teacher/anti-intellectual stuff is really bizarre.”
It’s been standard issue in the US for decades. You only notice it when you leave the funny farm.
I think it has a lot to do with fundamentalist religion and the folks that don’t “believe” in evolution. They distrust science in general.
There is a bible verse that some of them may tune into: 1 Timothy 6:19-20 - “Turn away from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge, 21 which some have professed and in so doing have departed from the faith.” I think this actually refers to the Gnosis movement of the early church, but most fundamentalists read the Bible through a modern eye and miss the cultural context of 1st century Christianity.
Some folks also may feel that sex education has been shoved down their throats. Or they object to global warming for political reasons and don’t want their children to be taught it in school.
Then when news channels talk about the dire condition of public education, it confirms their bias.
It’s like someone wants Americans to be really dumb or something.
An ignorant populace is more easily controlled than an educated one. So follow the money trail to those who want control, and there’s your answer.
Who would be behind this “movement”?
A former Australian National journalist hero, now a Patriotic American “entertainment” “Bidne$$man” mogul that’s trying to
coughvomitpuke out his last fauxNewsInc. “TrueStatesman™” hairball before he arrives at St. Peters toll booth.Rio:
Take it from me…I have been told just yesterday i was overqualified to answer phones on a radio show…..well duh I am but its keeping a job at the top of the resume and making contacts….and of course the person who said that was was some 20 something chickypoo former intern on her first paying gig.
Its the new ameikkkah and i hate it
Smoke screen, plain and simple.
This anti-teacher/anti-intellectual stuff is really bizarre.
Who would be behind this “movement”?
““When you go to an Ivy League school, you figure this degree will mean something — that it will guarantee you a job,” she said.”
No, what you bought is a label. What makes your degree any better for teaching little kids? You should have gone to a cheaper school and now you could be driving a BMW and carrying your designer purse.
The ivies aren’t really that much more expensive than other private schools in the same areas. Wasn’t Mibddlebury the most expensive (tuition) in the country for a few years?
And I have gotten a lot of benefit from my name degrees - mostly assumptions of having particular skills that the employer decided they didn’t have time to look into on it own. So, yes, that computer consulting company could have asked for a writing sample to see if I would be able to fix the writing of their programmers who didn’t have native fluency in English, but they didn’t want to. They saw the ivy degree and assumed (properly) that I could figure out what their guys really meant and rewrite it appropriately.
In my experience, having a name degree will at least get you an interview, if the rest of your resume is even close to what the employer is seeking.
Impressing the employer and keeping the job is up to you at that point.
Teacher. Big mistake.
The large baby boom echo generation is moving out of school. There are fewer students behind them.
Meanwhile, more and more tax dollars will be going to Generation Greed, across the board. At the state and local level, that means pensions and retiree health care. Teachers are being laid off to pay for it — far beyond those no longer actually needed.
My daughter is considering a teaching career. When I show her the fact, she said that Bill Clinton, who spoke at the college I attended and she is attending, said young people should follow their dreams.
Thanks alot Bill. Your generation had lots of dreams, many of them wet, some of them LSD induced. I’m more concerned with having my children avoid the correlative nightmares.
The other example in the article is architect.
My niece is finishing up a combined teaching/biology/health ed degree and will be looking for a teaching job soon. Fortunately she has a good job as a waitress/bartender to fall back on (if she doesn’t move, that is). Prospects look dimmer every day. She is not opposed to going overseas to teach, but I know she would be terribly homesick for her friends and family.
She is not opposed to going overseas to teach, but I know she would be terribly homesick for her friends and family.
Yep, and probably Mexican food too.
The large baby boom echo generation is moving out of school. There are fewer students behind them.
That’s going to be bopping a lot of local real estate investors over the head. They think that students are going to keep pouring into the University of Arizona they way they have for the past decade.
Sorry, buddies, but the party’s over.
BTW, did you know that the average age of an American college student is 29? Which means that a lot of students are not “going away” to school. Nope, they’re living at home and commuting. And working a job (or two) at the same time.
I think people who refuse to move to work or to improve certain situations shouldn’t complain about not finding work. They’ve made a decision to limit their options and should live w/the results of that decision.
My acquaintance has considered relocating. He almost took a job in smallerTexas town. Good thing he didn’t, he would be facing a layoff now.
Over time, (and assuming people wise up) you are going to start seeing Flyover pay scales increase dramatically. Why?
-Because nobody wants to live out here, unless they grew up here. And the migration of the flyover kids to the coasts continues.
-If you lose your semi-high paying job out here (and by “high pay”, I mean $50-60K or more), you are pretty well fooked. At best, you will be looking at a 500 mile plus move. At worst, you won’t find anything out here that requires your training, so you end up applying at Jiffy Lube and McDees.
Many of the local farm families have one or both parents working full or part time jobs locally, sometimes for a steady income, but most of the time so they can get employee health insurance.
Business people out in farm country don’t want to see a health care system that’s affordable and portable, because all of their best employees will disappear in about five nanoseconds if that happens. Then, they will have a hell of a time finding replacements who will work for $12/hour, 50 miles from BFE.
I can’t wait. I’m that guy with lots of skills and qualifications that would love to live where I grew up but refuse to change oil (motor or fryer) for a living. If enough other people leave perhaps a niche will open up for me there that won’t require a big step down in quality of living. Or perhaps the whole place will just blow away…unintended consequences can be tough.
I disagree. Technology is changing the workplace, I could live in flyover country (as long as there’s an airport nearby) and keep my current (high paying by most standards) job without a problem. And, if I lost this job, I could easily replace it with another high paying job that would allow me to live anywhere.
Yes, I work in IT, but, what we’re doing today, other professions will be doing tomorrow. Jobs are going to become more and more dispersed, the biggest qualifier is going to be living near an airport (and with good Internet connectivity) to be able to work your chosen profession.
As long as your profession requires mostly brainpower, and not as much physical presence. Most “high end” jobs have always been like this (lawyers, accountants, architects, etc). The push is going to continue further down into the stack, more and more mid-level positions are going to start to be “work from home” or at least work remotely.
The days of the huge office tower are coming to a close; my company has lots of huge offices that spend most of the time unoccupied except for transient workers (and meetings). It’s a huge waste of money, something someone will cut someday.
The push is going to continue further down into the stack, more and more mid-level positions are going to start to be “work from home” or at least work remotely.
My motto when job hunting is anything I can do from home can be done from India. While I’d like to work from home, I don’t want to do it for India wages, so I’m going to intentionally look for stuff that’s really tough to do from home.
Spot on, overtaxed. I base my address in Phoenix only because of its excellent airport. since 2000, I only worked in Phoenix for three years. Worked hundreds of miles away for 7 and a half years. The pay is great and my lifestyle made me ignore the real estate bubble. I get great tax write-offs working away from my main address, which is an apartment. Would not make sense to keep an empty house. Having very few possessions and no relations means you can get the best paying job you can find. Most people are not willing to commute by plane to work. So in many cases with my clients, they have open requisitions for months or years.
Bill,
We’ve probably been on a plane together, I fly US Air all the time. I’m the guy with about 10 external batteries hooked up to my laptop in seat 1C all the time.
If you happen to see someone fitting the description, ask them if they work is disaster recovery. 
Carl,
True “work from home” work will eventually move to India (at least some of it). However, what most people who work from home really do is sales/consulting work; it’s mostly about relationships and the ability to develop a rapport with a client. Also, much of the time I’m on the road meeting people and doing onsite visits (so not really working from home, but not ever in an office).
Not saying it won’t go to India, but it’s not going to go there until the stigma of “India IT support” goes away. Our clients pay us specifically so they don’t have to go into standard support queues (read, outsourced) and can get right to the people with high level skills who actually answer a cell phone (and not a call tree).
The biggest problem with India (and the orient) is the language barrier; nobody is going to pay 250/hr to talk to “network engineer” that they can’t understand. If that barrier drops, it will only be the “in person” touch that someone like me can provide, and, yes, then I’ll be a little more concerned. Sales and pre-sales engineering is almost all native English speakers, even today in IT, mostly because of the difficulty that others countries have with the language barrier (and the fact that much of this work is done in person; most people won’t spend millions of dollars with a voice on the other end of the phone).
Overtaxed, most people, including HBBers, are so negative that they get too blind to see opportunities. They tell you about this “Great depression,” you tell them you saw it coming and you ditched a lifestyle of having a family and mortage for great pay, that you can retire tomorrow if you want. Then the apse ones saying it is a great depression will tell you that you are losing out on a great life by not having children! Go figure!
I fly USAirways every two weeks. The main cabin going east and first class going west. Note my current screen name for locations. I only carry on a duffel bag, which fits under the seat, also a Sudoku book, Boze headphones, and of course my iPad.
LOL, I’m with you Bill. There are certain things that I’ve done (including buying a house) that certainly don’t go with the “general HBB mentality”. I know that certain things are out of reach for me (having children being a big one) but I’m not going to live my entire life looking for the boogeyman either.
I can’t retire tomorrow, but I’ve put myself in a situation where it wouldn’t be at all difficult for me to replicate my job (and pay) from many different sources; I’ve gotten several unsolicited job offers in the last year, and I’m sure that I could walk out the door of this house; take a rental (or buy another house) in any city in the country, and still have a job (or find another one quickly). That’s the kind of security that I needed to have (financially) to feel comfortable with buying a house.
We’ve probably never been on a plane together (I never fly to Tampa), but I’m sure we’ve been in PHX together (I connect there sometimes, and have actually been to PHX a few times this year for work). You’re missing upgrades PHX->TPA? That’s surprising.
I’m with you Bill. There are certain things that I’ve done (including buying a house) that certainly don’t go with the “general HBB mentality”
Because you guys must be special Bill and Overtaxed.
But why is it that you “great ones” feel so put upon by the man? I mean you both say you’re making so much money and “living the life” and whatever. But Overtaxed is “overtaxed” and Bill, well, bill is just Ayn Rand acolyte, linear thinking Bill.
But the deal is, all our our parents “limited their options” by getting married, or having kids.
“Limited options” is the lifeblood of Business. They depend on it to limit pay, and generally treat their employees like pond scum.
Their worst nightmare is a workforce full of unmarried, unattached, highly trained employees who are renting, and have money in the bank.
Strangely enough, business and government seem to be supporting the exact opposite result.
My demographic profile in a nutshell, although finishing graduate school in 2008 and being laid off in 2009 took care of the “money in the bank” part.
You got that right X-GSfixr. The company wants direct hires as a top priority for the very reasons you mention. For me, this nation is large enough and full of opportunities in my field that I can still get paid very well and make the jet lag worthwhile. I can usually find a good paying engineering gig in a city with serious indoor lap swimming pools. It is a constraint on myself that will give non-swimmers a leg up, however when I worked in Maryland, I did not swim for thirteen months. Instead, walked five miles per morning on a treadmill.
Many people CAN’T move for work.
But in this current economy, there is nowhere to move TO that’s any better.
Pardon me for sounding a bit harsh, but my fine University of Michigan economics degree didn’t prevent me from having to take jobs as a:
1. Dishwasher/dining room cleaner
2. Cashier/shelf-stocker
3. Ditch-digger/construction site laborer
True, I graduated in an era when student loans were uncommon, so I wasn’t saddled with a huge debt coming out of school. But, hey, I liked to stay fed and sheltered, just like I do now.
So, in the tough economy of the early 1980s, I was quickly disabused of the notion that my degree automatically led to a “good” job. Hell, it got to the point that if it paid money, it was good enough for me.
Too bad it’s really not possible to do this anymore. The cost of tuition at most state schools has gone up A LOT since I was a student in the 80’s.
I was able to put myself through state school (SUNY) by cleaning houses and waiting tables. But tuition was affordable for a young adult with a job. Yeah, it took 6 years to graduate, but I left without any loans.
True, I graduated in an era when student loans were uncommon, so I wasn’t saddled with a huge debt coming out of school. But, hey, I liked to stay fed and sheltered, just like I do now.
And it’s the same across the board. The cost of education has far outstripped anyone’s ability to pay for it by working menial jobs.
I’ve been hearing about “lost generations” for 30 years now.
In the 80s, it was the hyper-acceleration of offshoring jobs and de-regulation.
In the 90s it was more offshoring of jobs, with high tech ascending, but blue collar dying.
In the 00s, well, most of you here were adults and know how that turned out.
Within that 30 years, were 4 very brutal recessions with lower wages and permanent unemployment higher after each one. The stats don’t even begin to tell the story.
As long we continue to tolerate a plutocracy, expect to hear about lost generations until you’re dead.
So maybe these lost generations lost themselves.
Many WERE stupid and kept voting against their own interests.
“It can be beneficial to put off something bad, but when the future comes, the future comes,”
Painful stretch: Florida foreclosures grow lengthier
By Kimberly Miller Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Posted: 5:34 a.m. Thursday, May 12, 2011
It takes more than a year and a half for the average Florida foreclosure to slog through the system, nearly four times the pace in 2007, and analysts say the timeline probably will increase.
The length of time from initial court filing to bank repossession in Florida - 619 days - is significantly higher than the national average of 400, according to a foreclosure report released today by Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac. The national average in 2007 was 151 days.
Florida’s lengthy foreclosure process, mired in collapsed law firms and faulty bank paperwork, is a mixed bag for the economy, said Brad Hunter, chief economist of MetroStudy in Palm Beach Gardens.
Delaying a flood of distressed homes onto the market for resale keeps housing prices from crashing and may give borrowers more time to work on loan modifications to avoid foreclosure.
At the same time, if foreclosures are piling up, both at the banks and in the courts, a flood could be inevitable.
“It can be beneficial to put off something bad, but when the future comes, the future comes,” Hunter said.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/money/foreclosures/painful-stretch-florida-foreclosures-grow-lengthier-1470247.html - 81k -
“Delaying a flood of distressed homes onto the market for resale keeps housing prices from crashing…”
(Which keeps the comps up of which the banks hold the mortgages.)
“… and may give borrowers more time to work on loan modifications to avoid foreclosure.”
(Which keeps the FBs paying the banks or at least keeps the houses occupied rather than vacated, which keeps the comps up which helps the banks.)
Saving the banks, it’s all about saving the banks.
The Chile’s Home Buying Adventure chapter on the appraisal just came through. Interesting since this is the first time we’ve been through this to see the appraiser’s take on the property. This wasn’t a 2007 era drive by, no, there are multiple photos of each room in the report. We know he entered the property.
First disclaimer is that foreclosures are not included because they don’t represent the market.
Then the appraiser used only one sold price and two listings for comps. Took the asking price as a comp. What the hey?
Then, in a glaring example of “hit the number” instructions, the appraiser hit the agreed upon sale price. Nailed it to the nearest cent.
So my take from this is one of two things: loosely goosey operations are still the SOP for the appraisal market, or the Chile’s are extremely good at appraisals after seven years of looking for a house and reading the HBB.
Either way, it left me with a very uncomfortable pain in my gut.
“First disclaimer is that foreclosures are not included because they don’t represent the market.”
Bull$hit.
Bad Chile
Where are you?
Thank you for the post. We are paying cash in So Ca, and we thought of getting an appraisal, but without REO’s included in the comps (sources tell us), we will waste $. Either way we’re screwed.
So, what are the stats. One or two-story, sq ft, # bdrms, etc… I’m jazzed for you guys.
Can you access the County Recorder’s Office data base and do your own due diligence for your own point of reference? (Not public record in all states.)
Appraisals are worthless- any one can do them themselves. What are comparable properties in the same or comparable neighborhoods selling for? If you can’t answer that, you haven’t been looking at houses to buy for long.
The only difficulty is if the house is truly unique- like it’s a converted grain silo, or something. And then it’s just a SWAG for you or the appraiser.
Home inspections are far more valuable.
Zillow has a page where you can see sales, in a table, from most recent, by avg $ sq. ft. WTF else does an appraiser do?
The real meat in is in the inspection. Oh, they have unreported fire damage.
Muggy
Zillow uses some pretty complex algorithms, so I don’t usually believe what I see on their site. I go by Property Tax or County Recorder records. That price is real.
But aren’t comps just and average of dollars per square foot?
Muggy
If you want a better idea about what a home really sold for, realturd dot com has a property tax roll/sold for area to look up more accurate info.
Zillow doesn’t use the County Recorder’s Price as the sold price, they use their own formula or the list price. Sometimes price reductions aren’t even in the price. Zillow is a train wreck for hard data. Just my opinion from my due diligence. I’m licensed in Ca, btw.
At least 5 comps in the neighborhood, tax assessors info, and cost of repairs. Add insurance and utilities.
Then underbid that.
Bingo.
Fortunately all transactions are public records in this state, so our final negotiated price took all comps into account. Mrs. Chile was pretty on top of things, pulling transactions for the past three years and basing our offer on those transactions (and then discounting even further).
I’m just shocked I tell you that the official bank appraisal was so…rookie. I know the loan is getting sold off to Fannie & Freddie; so based on this single experience they continue to buy “fishy” loans.
Mrs. Chile sounds like a peach. You picked well, Bad Chile!
Seems to me that the only value of an appraisal might be for determining the value of an income property: what could it rent for, what are the expected maintenance and management costs, tax loads, etc.; what’s the projected ROI, and at what price does it make sense relative to other investment opportunities.
Otherwise, market value is just an opinion- hard data points only happen when two of these opinions (buyer and seller) meet. I don’t see why an appraiser’s opinion is any more valuable - worth paying for - than Joe 6P’s.
Appraisers proved themselves worthless during the bubble build up. Appraisals were just followed the market mania. I saw no effort to tie values to replacement construction costs and such. What makes anybody think they’d be an accurate measure of value now?
Two comps (in my opinion) for our family’s latest misadventure in real estate investing are available. Mom offered 105k on a short sale offered at 114k. One closed across the street for 129k. It’s a bit bigger. Another directly behind it just closed for 92k(bank owned sale). Since foreclosures don’t count; 129k will likely be the comp. Minus a little for the smaller square footage.
Luckily for me, my mom is cheap and will not pay the higher price. She will go up to about 110k and I know the lender may take issue with that. So she may get fed up with the short sale shenanigans and the bogus appraisal system. Around here the short sales immediately get an offer and get hung up at the negotiator level. Another home we liked is offered at 140k. Agent told me the previous offer of 130k was too low for the lender; and to come in at 135k to see if it flies. But 140k is a little out of mom’s comfort zone.
So, I may still be able to convince her to bag the whole idea. She fears her 42 y/o fledgling won’t be able to get a rental as we have a couple dogs. and with all the foreclosed upon people, rents are rising here as its a landlord’s market. I’ve secured plenty of rentals and have good references, but the truth is landlords are raising rents and can afford to be more picky. As more homes are laying fallow thanks to the banks and their tricky accounting.
“Either way, it left me with a very uncomfortable pain in my gut.”
I remember that feeling and the uncomfortable laugh I let out when I read both the to-the-cent appraisals on my last 2 homes.
What I find most interesting is he could only find one sold comp to support it.
The appraiser for our house said he was going to have a hard time getting the right value for our house. I asked if he thought it was worth less than we were paying. He said no, it would appraise for much more. I thought that was hardly a problem and said so, but he said banks don’t like houses appraising for MORE (say more than 5%) than the sale price either and it throws up red flags on the loan underwriting.
He wound up setting the value at 25k over the accepted selling price. I read his appraisal, and all his comps were VERY carefully selected.
Anyone following the TTT show, complete with hissy fits? Default on the debt? Why the very idea, we can’t do that, we’re the United States!
Get over it, Timmay. Yes, WE CAN!
I don’t like it when the words “deficits” and “trillions of dollars” are thrown together in the same sentence with so little concern.
If the CFO of a company that you owned stock in said that deficits don’t matter, would you sell that stock?
If your spouse spent your hard earned money and thought nothing of it as if there was a never-ending supply of the stuff, would you stay married to him/her?
You are aware that it was Cheney who said ‘deficits don’t matter’, and he was re-elected, by the same people who are suddenly obsessed with cutting the deficit- now that they’re OUT of power.
Apparently the Republican version of Keynes theory (run deficits in bad times, pay them back in good times) is to run deficits when they’re in power, and demand they be paid back (only with spending cuts- never with taxes), when they’re out of power. Illogical, but it seems to fool enough of the people, enough of the time- like you!
Y’know alpha, this Rep vs Dem business is getting really old, neither of these parties give a crap about the citizens they supposedly represent, they’re just two sides of the same lousy coin. Most intelligent folks have caught on to this.
Check out the latest from Wikileaks on the NAU/NAFTA scam. They want to make a human centipede out of Mexico, US and Canada. Guess which end gets to eat and defecate first?
“Y’know alpha, this Rep vs Dem business is getting really old…”
Ooops- sorry. I’ll quit bringing up those annoying historical facts, which apparently get in the way of so many informative and useful fact-free rants.
they’re just two sides of the same lousy coin.
However, repubicans are the undisputed 50 year champions of “tickle-down” $7.43 per hour “Jobs for most Americans!”
ReducetheDeficitNow!Today!…get angry!
Linda the Lunch Lady Lives Lavishly!
“You a citizen, claiming bankruptcy? Place a boot on their neck and press hard. You a “Financial Innovation”-”Bidne$$man” claiming bankruptcy? Naw, no worrie$, here take some money, as much as you want, but hurry, hurry, hurry,…on accounts of “this sucker could go down any second”, Oh, and Cheney just mentioned: “Deficits don’t matter!”
“I’ll quit bringing up those annoying historical facts, which apparently get in the way of so many informative and useful fact-free rants.”
combo doesn’t rant. combo usually posts short, pithy questions and comments, providing food for thought.
combo’s posts, however, were followed by a rant with an ad-hominem.
Yes, the Rep vs. Dem debate is getting old. I have given up on this country, and within the next 5 to 10 years would like to move to Canada. It’s not perfect, but it is a realistic goal as I meet the immigration “points” threshhold to move there.
There is an undercurrent of virile ugliness and hatred in the US that I just don’t want to live in anymore. I give up on voting, and beyond that, I’ve about given up trying to change other peoples’ attitudes.!
If one didn’t know better, then combo’s post sure made it sound like the Geithner said ‘deficits don’t matter’.
Sorry if my pointing out it was Cheneys quote slowed down the pithiness, but I posted it in response to a bunch of his misleading questions.
I thought questions called for answers, but I guess I should have just shouted ‘republicrats’ and ‘Ron Paul Is the Answer!’, in order to keep the thread going hot.
It seems that far too often what appear to me to be non-partisan comments are interpreted as highly partisan by others.
I’m so tired of all the energy that is wasted arguing over which party is less bad or has done less damage. What’s the point? Both parties suck. They suck in slightly different ways and to varying degrees depending on the specific topic, but they definitely both suck. Can’t we just all agree on that and move on? Otherwise it’s like spending hours arguing over whether a punch in the face is better or worse than a kick to the groin. Why can’t I choose neither?
There is a HUGE difference between the 2, but I like to vote Green myself.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE68R40I20100928
http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN1249465620080812
Yes, the key difference is that if I’m a Democrat then I disagree with everything a Republican says. If I’m a Republican, then I disagree with everything a Democrat says. So in that sense, they are opposites.
I realize there are actual differences between the parties, much like there are differences between how it feels to be punched in the face vs kicked in the groin. I guess my point is that I’m quite sure I don’t want either so I see no need to waste energy debating which is worse.
Appears we’re on the same page as I also vote 3rd party or independent wherever I can.
Keeping tax breaks for offshoring jobs is a small difference?
Really?
“What’s the point? Both parties suck. They suck in slightly different ways and to varying degrees depending on the specific topic, but they definitely both suck. Can’t we just all agree on that and move on…
I also vote 3rd party or independent wherever I can.”
Another one that thinks he’s above politics when he’s talking his politics.
Ya don’t know whether to laugh or cry…
I suspect that no one believes the looters will fail to renew their self issued lisence.
Why no outrage at the looting of the public pension funds? Haha!
“Why no outrage at the looting of the public pension funds? Haha!”
Because the people affected are smart enough to recognize that it’s a temporary, stop-gap action, taken to keep the government working until the adults take charge again (ie after the TeaKoch partiers are sated/ realize that their SS and Medicare bennies- which they support- aren’t going to get paid).
That recognition would be a hope based on trust. Those adults of yours have proved to be a most untrustworthy bunch. What would be so bad about nationalizing the public pension funds anyway? Put them in the same category as SS. Trust Fund! Call it income, budget balanced. Party on.
I also read during Clinton’s gov shutdown the Treasury did the same. So it’s not a shocking precedence.
They’ve done it before, and they’re likely to do it again. In fact, the frequency is likely to increase. But they’ve also “made us whole” in the past, although the quarterly statement was real complex.
OK, I’m outraged.
I didn’t particularly like the looting of the excess regressive payroll tax payments by far worse off non-wealthy private sector workers over the past 28 years, either.
It isn’t just defaulting on the debt that is the issue (though that is what will have Wall street in a twist). Just stopping debt payments won’t cut government outlays by over 30%.
What they need to do is announce what they will do if they run out of games to play. Will they give a hair cut to all social security payments? Will they let the executive branch federal workers keep working but cut them all down to minimum wage salaries? Will they cut payments to doctors who treat people on Medicare? Will they tell the defense contractors to please keep working and we’ll owe you for it? Tell all the agriculture subsidy recipients that the check isn’t in the mail? I think they might have to do all of those things and still not have cut enough.
Your point is excellent. All we have now is fear mongering, which is a pretty abusive tactic. I can’t see any “plan” other than to continue skyrocketing the public debt.
Everything I listed is a “stop gap” measure. It isn’t what a final deal would look like. Congress has appropriated (or doesn’t need to appropriate) the current spending. They made a budget that the president signed.
What I suggested are a few things that might have to be done if the money is appropriated, but can’t be obtained.
When I was out of work and living on unemployment, I cut my spending down. But I still had to pay rent. I still had to pay for health insurance. I still had to pay utilities and buy food. I could cut buying new clothes or going out to the theater or movies and keep the apartment cold in the winter and hot in the summer or any number of other things.
Well, technically, the government can’t do that. The money is appropriated - that was the last budget crisis. So the amount to be spent has already been determined. Its just that they can’t get their hands on the cash that the budget says they have to spend.
What they need to do is tell people what not having the money will actually DO, and like my list, it isn’t going to make many people happy.
The correct time to deal with this is at the time for the next budget - which is the end of September.
Defaults? Massive cuts? Geez.
Everyone relax already.
Everything is going to stay the same until it all blows.
Will they tell the defense contractor$ to please keep working
and we’ll owe you for itto prevent an impending invasion and take over of Bangor Maine?700+ Billion$… per year… tain’t enough! Get Angry!
“Cut$ for the poor!,…we need more$!”
“Cut$ for the poor!,…we need more$!”
“Cut$ for the poor!,…we need more$!“
“When do we want it?! NOW!”
Remember, private federal contractor employees now outnumber regular federal government employees.
So you’re actually complaining about… the private sector costing us too much.
Serial bottom callers suggest housing will remain weak, possibly into next year.
Housing Starts Plunge In April
Categories: Business, National News, Economy
10:53 am
May 17, 2011
by Korva Coleman
Construction workers in New Bristow Village, Virginia.
Enlarge PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images
Construction workers in New Bristow Village, Virginia.
There’s no sugar-coating it: the Commerce Department says during April, builders got started on fewer homes in the U.S. Housing starts, as they’re called, were down 10.6% from March’s report, and they’re 23.9% lower than what they were a year ago at the same time.
The Wall Street Journal headline captures the gloomy report best: Housing Data Still Awful. There’s a teeny spot of good news - the data on housing starts in March was revised upward but it doesn’t do enough good. CNN notes the housing industry is hamstrung by unsold homes already sitting on the market and the high natinal unemployment rate.
Reuters asks around, and finds economists expect the housing market will stay weak, possibly into next year.
…
“economists expect the housing market will stay weak, possibly into next year.”
Kind of like the ‘Free Beer Tomorrow’ joke sign in some bars. (This apparently confuses some people, who get excited about it.)
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. A builder’s ability to buy finished lots (lots that already have infrastructure built, utilities distributed, roads/curbs/gutters in, etc.) at less than replacement cost is the only thing that allows builders to construct a new home and sell for a profit in most markets today.
The supply of finished lots is dwindling. Very few new finished lots will be built until home prices rise a fair amount (10%? 20%?).
It should be no surprise that new home starts are falling. They will fall to close to zero until home prices rise.
If you have no expectation of home prices rising over the next 2-3 years, then you must also have an expectation that almost no new homes will be built.
How much of the cost of a finished lot is platting, permitting, paving and preparing, versus how much is the raw land? Because the price of raw land can fall to its agricultural value, or to where holding costs are low enough to hold it purely speculatively.
Whether land has fallen to ag value or not really depends on the market.
In today’s environment, if you exclude coastal cities, the builders are buying/have bought land for less than the cost of improvements, assuming land were free (negative residual land values). Land values essentially fell to less than $0. Builders were buying the improvements for a discount to cost, and getting the land for free. At that price (free land), it is feasible for builders to build.
If you assume that builders need to pay ag value, prices need to rise.
And in CA, if you assume that the builders will need to pay the folks who went through the multi-year process to get the entitlements (including consultants, engineering, cost of capital, etc.), prices need to rise even further, or those holding the entitled land simply won’t sell. And they would be justified in holding out for a higher price based on affordability levels in the state, and the lack of entitled land. Eventually supply/demand will cause home prices to adjust to more traditional levels of affordability.
As a real life example, at the bottom (or toward the bottom) of the land market, we bought a group of improved lots (including common amenities for the subdivision) for approximately 15% of the debt. Based on the improvements that were in the ground (and above ground), we think this price represented about 25% of all costs EXCLUDING land (remember, matched up with the debt was some equity as well). We expect ultimately to sell for about 75%-80% of costs excluding land, under the assumption that a builder would rather pay 80% of improvement cost on free land than 100% of improvement costs on land that costs more than $0.
HOWEVER, in today’s environment, we don’t believe that builders can justify even that price. So, as was our original plan, we wait it out.
Wow.
And lack of decent paying jobs are going to make it a long wait.
The lots are positioned to be the cheapest homes in the market. The wait may be long…or not. Either way, we bought without any debt, so we can wait.
With a growing population (increasing number of households), home prices being so low that few new homes will be built, in the context of high levels of affordability, is an unsustainable market condition–just like homes being priced at such a high level that affordability was at an all-time low was an unsustainable market condition.
The question revolves around timing…when you are in the depth of recession, better times look far out. Media reports of 4 years to recovery, etc. are commonplace today. However, if you look just 3 years in the rearview mirror, Lehman was still in business. A lot has happened since then. A lot will happen in the next 3 years.
Three years into the future, even with weak job growth of 150k per month, there will be 5.4 million more people employed. Unemployment rate will not look great due to increasing people entering the workforce…call me the crazy optimist.
I do find it interesting that used car prices are spiking. People are blaming cash for clunkers. However, the increase in prices didn’t happen for a LONG time following the end of cash for clunkers. Along with the lack of supply of used cars, there must be an increase in demand for cars; prices for used cars are increasing at the same time more and more new cars are being built and sold (wouldn’t that increase supply of used cars as people trade in/sell their used cars?).
Houses on the other hand, didn’t have the widespread destruction of used product, but it did have almost the complete stoppage of new home construction. What happens when demand improves for housing? Prices rise to levels where affordability is closer to the long term average.
I dunno man, an article in the Arizona Republic saying that Phoenix rentals are the rage. Like high demand, partly or mostly because people fear committing to the Phoenix economy. I think this fear of real estate commitment will last a decade more, into 2021.
I dunno man, an article in the Arizona Republic saying that Phoenix rentals are the rage.
ISTR reading that, for every three people who move to AZ, two leave. Which means that we have a very dynamic population. That could explain the popularity of rentals in our largest city.
Especially these days, when people are coming here, and keeping their possession inventory small as they weigh their options. One of those options may be going Back Home when the job market* improves there.
—-
* Not that the AZ job market is very good right now. (It isn’t.)
Wow, a decade is a long time. That’s some serious pessimism…
It took a whole 3-4 years for people to get over the dotcom crash and enter back into tech investing…now we are approaching another bubble…~10-years post crash (see LinkedIn’s IPO).
You can buy a foreclosed home and rent it out for an 8% unleveraged yield (after expenses) in Southern California. This is an unheard of rate of return in that market for a single family home (really high). This makes it much cheaper to own than rent. The same is the case in AZ. Owning being cheaper than renting is a relatively rare condition in the history of residential ownership.
Once enough of the shadow inventory has made it’s way through for there to be a bounce in prices (as more buyers scramble for fewer good homes), you’ll quickly see the fear of loss change into the fear of missing out on gains.
See the stock market recovery as an example of the speed with which market psychology can change.
Sorry to post following another post, but I find it slightly ironic that the same media outlets that were speaking of “permanently high plateaus” during the worst of the bubble years are now quoted as evidence that we are going to be at a near permanent trough.
For all of us, they were completely full of it back then…and now they are insightful?
Insightful? No, I think we’re just pointing out that they are finally past denial and we’re also laughing at how far off the mark they were and still are.
However, it IS a fact that falling and stagnate wages cannot support an economy that is 75% consumer driven. That wages have not kept up with true inflation over the last 30 years. That high inflation is here, again, now, and that wages are stagnate for almost everyone. That the middle class population has become less than the working poor.
Well then, they are no longer denying the housing mess and have jumped on the “housing will forever be depressed” bankwagon just in time, after:
Home prices have fallen to a point where in 80% of markets in the US it is cheaper to own than rent;
Rents are rising, home prices are falling, making the difference even more stark every passing month;
Affordability is at an all-time high; and
Home prices relative to incomes are at a 30-year low (independent of interest rates, and despite the war on the middle class).
Bang up job media. The media’s record of being a contrary indicator is intact.
I find it rather incredible that people are ignoring the same kind of indisputable data that was flashing red lights in 2005-2007 (price to income, inflation adjusted home prices–real inflation,not the BS published inflation, own vs. rent analysis, etc.) in favor of what they want to believe. That same data is now flashing giant green lights when it comes to home prices.
And yes, there are foreclosures and shadow inventory, which will keep a generally steady flow of forced selling onto the markets, but many of the renters out there are moving from homes that they lost to foreclosure…it is predominantly a game of housing musical chairs…once the foreclosure mess has burned itself out (no more forced sellers), public sentiment will improve and prices will rebound.
Am I the only one that sees this? Or just the only one willing to express the opinion openly on this board?
public sentiment will improve and prices will rebound….Am I the only one that sees this? Or just the only one willing to express the opinion openly on this board?
I see it. Much of your observation is correct. I maybe would buy a house for cash in 80% of the USA now too if I lived there.
But I also see declining median wages relative to real inflation, jobs still being lost, a country facing a public sector shakeout and a third world banana republic facing pension, retirement, health-care issues along with an aging American population.
In other words, I don’t see buying a house or not in America as that big of a deal right now.
More freebies on the backs of the state taxpayers: Yes I’m sure new housing for a private university’s students is a priority in our state these days:
The (the Syracuse Industrial Development Agency)’s directors voted 4-0 to exempt the $18 million project from the state mortgage recording tax and from sales taxes on construction materials. The developer expects to save an estimated $325,000 from the exemptions, said Ben Walsh, deputy commissioner of the city’s Office of Neighborhood & Business Development.
Swanson announced plans in March to turn the former armory at 1055 E. Genesee St. into 133 apartments aimed at Syracuse University students. Forty-nine apartments would be built in the existing brick-faced armory. Another 84 apartments would go into a new building to be constructed in the rear of the property. The complex also will feature a fitness center for tenants.
Copper Beech Commons will receive a 100 percent exemption for eight years from any increase in its tax assessment attributable to the renovations, with a partial exemption for four additional years.
The armory was built by the state in 1940 and is directly across from Swanson’s Genesee Grande Hotel. Swanson bought the armory property in 2004 for $579,000.
http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2011/05/developer_getting_tax_breaks_t.html#incart_hbx
Interesting that a local authority has the power to forgive state taxes.
Damn unions.
Oh wait…
Awkward: wife has a high school friend on facebook that constantly celebrates new clients in her updates.
She is a consultant that offshores call centers.
So why doesn’t she say something? For that matter, addressing your other comment, why don’t teachers get more upset with their associates who bonk their students? Why no objections to public academics like Sean Snaith?
Why no objections from teachers at having to put up with bilingualism?
That might be a few of the reasons teachers are not well supported in Florida at this time.
I do realize all the political and legal minefields that teachers must navigate. It must be hell, and I’m not unsympathetic, but that’s what happens when good teachers keep silent and go along to get along. Not just teachers. When people put up with things for a paycheck, as has happened in technology, pretty soon there’s no paycheck.
Because they WILL lose their jobs and possibly even be blacklisted (don’t EVEN think that isn’t very common these days)
So… there’s your choice. Lose your job now or lose it later. Later wins every time.
You do realize you’ve just argued FOR unions, right?
With friends like those…
I’m surprised your wife’s friend isn’t afraid for her security.
My staffing company is buying up foreign staffing companies, although not in emerging economies yet. Outsourcing is outsourcing.
Do you post that every day on FB? Lol…
I sincerely hope you are as invulnerable as you think you are.
If it hadn’t been for Cotton-Eye Joe
I’d bought a house long time ago
Somebody tell me I wanna know
Who gave the loans to Cotton-Eye Joe
He brought disaster wherever he went
Joe never paid but he always spent
They all ran away so no one would know
Who gave the loans to Cotton-Eye Joe
If it hadn’t been for Cotton-Eye Joe
I’d bought a house long time ago
Where did you come from where did you go
Who refied the house for Cotton-Eye Joe
Joe won`t leave and Joe won`t pay
So in this rental I gotta stay
Somebody tell me I wanna know
Why did you loan to Cotton-Eye Joe
Almost sounds like public unions vs everyone else (who pays for the public union’s stuff) here in America…
————————-
Merkel Blasts Greece over Retirement Age, Vacation
DER SPIEGEL | 05/18/2011
It was the kind of criticism that one isn’t used to hearing from Angela Merkel. Normally sober and analytical to a fault, the German chancellor on Tuesday evening blasted a handful of heavily indebted southern European countries, saying they needed to raise retirement ages and reduce vacation days.
Keeping debt under control, Merkel said in a speech at an event held by her party, the conservative Christian Democratic Union, in the western German town of Meschede, isn’t the only priority. “It is also important that people in countries like Greece, Spain and Portugal are not able to retire earlier than in Germany — that everyone exerts themselves more or less equally. That is important.”
She added: “We can’t have a common currency where some get lots of vacation time and others very little. That won’t work in the long term.”
There are indeed significant differences between retirement ages in the two countries. Greece announced reforms to its pension system in early 2010 aimed at reducing early retirement and raising the average age of retirement to 63. Incentives to keep workers in the labor market beyond 65 have likewise been adopted. Germany voted in 2007 to raise the retirement age from 65 to 67 over the next several years.
In January of this year, Merkel proposed a “pact for competitiveness” that would force EU members to coordinate their national policies on issues like tax, wages and retirement ages. A watered-down version of the pact was agreed upon at a summit in March.
So we’re globalizing, offshoring production, and letting the rich keep more money so they’ll ‘create jobs’ with it, and the end result is we’ve all gotta work longer and harder and retire later.
Sounds like a bum deal.
We are not all on that program, at least not mainline so. The most difficult part was breaking free from the debt slavery machine.
How about investing in the stocks of those off-shoring companies instead of carping?
How about investing in the stocks of those off-shoring companies instead of carping?
Yea. Especially if your job was outsourced.
Greece gave the same deal U.S. public employees got to everyone. That is far more equitable. They are all going down together.
Get back to us when you’re 65. Let us know how that’s working for you.
Cash for clunkers + the recession created another bubble?
High used-car prices make it ideal time to sell. 16-year high for used car prices makes it ideal time to sell or trade in; prices could slip. AP
DETROIT (AP) — It’s the best time in years to sell your car.
People are holding on to cars and trucks for about a year longer than they did before the recession, which has created a tight supply of used vehicles. So few are on the market that prices have risen to their highest in at least 16 years.
Dealers are paying an average of $11,660 for a used car or truck, up almost 30 percent since December 2008.
“You’re not going to find a situation like this very often,” says Jonathan Banks, executive auto analyst for the National Automobile Dealers Association used car pricing guide.
The run-up in prices for used cars has been so dramatic that it almost doesn’t make sense to buy them anymore, says David Whiston, an auto analyst for Morningstar. That’s probably a good indication that prices are at or near a peak.
“For just a little bit more I can buy a brand-new car,” he says. “There’s a tipping point. I think we are getting very close to seeing that.”
Take the Honda Accord, known for reliability and holding its value. A dealer would sell a 2008 four-cylinder Accord LX sedan in good condition with about 45,000 miles on it for $16,175.
With no down payment and a loan at 5 percent interest, it would cost $373 a month to pay off the Accord in four years. But Honda is offering a three-year lease on a new 2011 Accord for just $250 a month. The company will even make the first payment. You still have to pay $600 up front and 15 cents for each mile you drive over 12,000 a year.
They forget to mention that new car prices are through the roof. It’s one of the reasons used car prices are holding up so well.
“People are holding on to cars and trucks for about a year longer than they did before the recession”
I think its more than that.
By July, inventories of cars at the Big Japanese Three dealers are expected to be pretty thin. Wouldn’t be surprised to see dealers try to get MORE than sticker price for the remaining few.
Here’s an opportunity for U.S,, Korean and European manufacturers to grab some market share.
I wonder if and when the Chinese will make their move into the US car market?
About 3 years ago.
BYD is the company.
Yeah, the used car prices may be up 10%, but new car prices are up 25%.
The only relative “bargains” are in gas-sucking pickup trucks. And they were way overpriced to begin with.
Not to mention it doesn’t make much sense to buy a new car if you are renting, and don’t have a garage for it. Especially out here in “Tornado/Hail/Cook the paint and Interior with 110 degree Heat Alley”.
And the nutzo property taxes.
I should have bought a new car in 2008, because I’ve been priced out forever…..
I haven’t bought a new car since 1979.
Bullcrap. It’s the best time to hang onto your car if it’s running well.
Trade-in will kill 50% of its worth right off the bat. Better to sell it privately and use that for your down payment.
There are also places that specialize in giving you a better price than a trade-in at a dealer. It’s a compromise between private sale and trade-in, but it’s usually fast and fairly honest.
I have about 63,000 miles on my 2003 Toyota. I thought back in 2093 that I would trade it in for a new car in 2013, but it runs well and is economical and practical. It is a keeper for a lot of years.
2093=2003…back to the future?
Hey, don’t feel bad, I’m the king of duslexica around here.
All this political crap sucks on here… Go hate bush and blame
everything on him.. U retards love a fool
with a empty suit.. Worst ever period..
He’re some good news. I don’t blame everything on Bush. I blame his generation. His policies, and those of other Republicans and most Democrats, were mere symptoms. With analogs in the private sector.
“Worst ever period” indeed, and I’m not referring to the period since Obama’s election either.
Although I guess the Great Recession and WWII were no picnic either. But at least most Americans had families back then.
But at least most Americans had families back then.
See Hwy’s post down below:
x3 males that served in the US military (WWII & Vietnam & Grenada)
x2 sisters + x1 mother that worked for more than 25+ years each and never collected x.01 cent in Social Security $$$$$$$$
It never ceases to amuse me how some can be so political, and yet scream ’stop being so political!’ when someone presents a political opinion they disagree with.
Talk about blind. (I guess it helps if you believe in heros/saviors like RP, who we are told are somehow ‘in politics, but not of it’.)
Yes…. the hypocrisy of mindless, educationless conservatives always amazes the general public.
Some of the smartest people I’ve known in life were conservative, though liberal.
Sometime try unplugging from the collective mind think.
Some of the smartest people I’ve known in life were conservative, though liberal.
lol, just like Rash Limpbaughs, conservative in his own-mind, liberal with those lil’ blue pills!
No, not like that. Conservative like doing an honest job, contributing to the community, honest, caring for family, living within one’s means kind of stuff. Liberal like respecting people of different background and philosophy. The example you gave is a characature of humanity.
What family? To prosper nicely the last eleven years you had to dump your family and material possessions and work as a consultant, or become a bankster and keep your family.
“Conservative like doing an honest job, contributing to the community, honest, caring for family, living within one’s means kind of stuff. ”
Those are values that transcend liberal or conservative, nice try to make them conservative values.
I agree it is hard to come up with positive conservative values, since essentially they’re just the negative, foot-dragging party, whose job it is to slow down human progress- very occasionally for the better, generally for the worse.
They once had the value of being fiscally conservative, but that seems like another lifetime now, doesn’t it? A time long ago…
It never ceases to amuse me how you never notice the plank in your own self-righteous eye.
It must be nice to have the world figured out so nice and tidy. Are you 18?
I’d venture to say you’re barely old enough to sit at the bar and order a beer.
“It never ceases to amuse me how you never notice the plank in your own self-righteous eye.”
I never deny I make political points, I laugh at those who do the same, while thinking they’re being non-political. This is particularly true of the Ron Paulers, libertarians, and the like, who apparently are so lost to themselves that they think talking up their political views isn’t political at all, just good ol’ common sense!
“Are you 18?”
I wish I were 18.
It was a very good year,
A very good year for small town girls,
And soft summer nights….
It’s that “political crap” that is destroying us and us peons are just trying get a handle on it because like it or not, it controls our lives.
Color photographs of the Great Despression:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1388179/Rare-Library-Congress-colour-photographs-Great-Depression.html
Great images, thanks!
Tankxs,…looks like a Norman Rockwell portfolio.
The last picture:
Facing life head on: Jack Whinery, homesteader, and his family in Pie Town, New Mexico, October 1940
x5 kids
No life insurance
No health insurance
No disability insurance
No workers-compensation insurance
No crop-damage insurance
No dental-eye glasses insurance
No pet insurance
No 401K
No stocks
No 6-months wage savings
No seat belts
x4 thread bare tires
No 8-track or DVD player
No gift cards
No high-fructose corn syrup
No sparkling water
No ipod
Hwy’s family 1957… x6 (-3)
Radical Rick: “How tough is it Hwy?”
Did these people never hear of a rubber? Why do poor people have tons of kids?
I liked the scene at the fair where they are eating BBQ. The single slice of ordinary white bread vs. the fancy roll you would get today. That and they’re sitting in the dirt.
One thing I did notice: the pics were from the 40’s, so it was a wartime economy. These people were used to hard times, and then a war started and if their boys were old enough they got drafted. That must have been an eye opener for guys who grew up in a house made of sod, being sent to Africa, Asia or Europe to fight. A lot of 18 year olds grew up really fast.
One thought leads to another. It reminds me of the movie Marty. Set after the war, portraying those who had served returning to a normal life, and just how different a “normal” life was back then compared to now.
I’m rambling … back to work,
Well back then, birth control was ILLEGAL in many states.
That wasn’t the only thing that was illegal in many states.
During the Great Depression, my mother’s mother saved a neighbor woman’s life. Seems that the woman had gotten pregnant, and the family budget just couldn’t handle another child.
So, the neighbor had one of those back-alley operations. And there were complications.
It wasn’t as if she could check in to a hospital and get help. Because that would have meant that she would have to confess to what she’d had done.
Instead of going that route, she turned to my grandmother for help. And Grandma nursed her back to health.
“Why do poor people have tons of kids?”
Survival, that’s why. When people can’t eat, or are not sure about their survival, they will reproduce like crazy in an effort to insure future survival through progeny. When people are more economically secure and don’t have to worry where their next meal is coming from, they reproduce less.
Massive reproduction is a sign of a desperate population.
LOL, when the expenses of an Ivy League education, a 4,000 ft2 house, BMWs and wardrobe make raising irritating little ingrate children unattractive, the society is desperate indeed.
Have those homesteaders had the same mailman for the last 15 years? Because neither parent has wide set eyes, but all the kids do.
IDK, but check out those “Old Navy” fabric patterns on the kids!
Looks like cold sores on the bigger gal’s mouth area, the girl on the right. Ewwwww
The reason they had five kids is they were in Pie Town, NM. I bet not much has changed in Pie Town in 70 years, having driven through it last summer (weekend adventure with the wife). Wasn’t like there was anything else to do.
Try this photo…inbred(s).
http://tinyurl.com/43xfkfd
Article on Marketwatch today:
The higher costs of strategic default
“Whn buying another home or even renting one, lenders and landlords may be more discriminating about the type of default you have on your record. And they don’t take kindly to strategic defaulters.”
Translation: keep spinning that hampster wheel throwing good money after bad, lest the credit score boogeyman hide under your bed and kick you out of the howmuchamonth Kool Kidz Klubhouse for seven long years…
You’re right, but do you also know that credit scores are now a deciding factor in hiring and have been for the last 20 years?
For those of you who think the bubble is gone, I assure you it has yet to deflate in Brooklyn. I live in a rowhouse with a small rear and front yard on a street built as a midddle class street in 1915.
About 1/2 mile away, farther from both the subway and Prospect Park, someone put up a condominium on a street originally built for the working class people who labored in nearby factories. You can see this by looking at the picture. They want $1.2 million for a condo the size of my house — without the finished basement.
http://www.brownstoner.com/brownstoner/archives/2011/05/226_15th_street_1.php
Now large housing units are scarce in New York City — only one-third of the city’s housing units have three or more bedrooms, compared with two thirds nationally. But so are decent schools. These are Crazy Eddie prices in reverse — Insane!
I can make a quick list of 50 items that I could obligate 1.2 million US Dollar$ accumulated from a working $alary…that place wouldn’t even make the bottom of the list. :-/
You pay 1 million for a condo and you deserve what you get.
In Jupiter Fl. 33458 which is my target area to buy there are 434 properties listed for sale on Realtor.com
RealtyTrac listings in 33458 are…
446 Pre-foreclosure
146 Auction
167 Bank Owned
In response to my post yesterday on ways to pay off the debt. I found this article
BERLIN (Reuters) – One in three university students in the German capital would consider sex work as a means to finance their education, a study from the Berlin Studies Center said on Wednesday.
The figure in Berlin, where prostitution is legal, was higher than students surveyed in Paris (29.2 percent) and in Kiev (18.5 percent), the three cities the report looked at.
The study found some 4 percent of the 3,200 Berlin students surveyed said they had already done some form of sex work, which includes prostitution, erotic dancing and Internet shows.
The elite want us to sell off our highways, and utilities, and parks etc etc what will they want us to sell next.
I’m all for that. Pass on the most vicious STDs to our elite.
In Nevada, where it is legal in every county except Clark and Washoe, the prostitutes of the brothels are REQUIRED by the at ate of Nevada to have regular tests for STDs, and they are tested far ,ore often than the average woman. You are far more likely to get an STD from a woman you meet at a bar or even on a dating site than from a legal Nevada sex worker.
Of course, AIDS spread for years without being detected by any tests, since we didn’t know to test for it.
Well if there were any epidemics from the brothels, the Bible thumpers would certainly let us know. So I call BS.
said they had already done some form of sex work
Hwy wonders what would Martin Luther might have to say that could fit contemporary German financial behavior?
There was talk the other day about selling our women to the Chinese.
For some reason I’m reminded of a Cowboy Bebop episode where on a cold, Jovian moon (Callisto?) there were no women and a lot of men dressed in drag and worked as hookers.
See ya later Space Cowboy!
This is quite common in this country. Mostly strip.., er, exotic dancers and “escorts”.
Oh, and the word I’m hearing from some of the “employees” I know is even that business is down.
Police: Dania man put sick, elderly mom in tool shed to rent out her room; charged with abuse
By Danielle A. Alvarez
Sun Sentinel
Posted: 9:51 a.m. Tuesday, May 17, 2011
DANIA BEACH — A man was charged with abusing and neglecting his mother after deputies found the malnourished, sick woman living in a tool shed behind his property.
Deputies arrested Pastro Jang-Sung Park, 54, on Sunday after they discovered his mother, Sei Hee Park, 84, living in dangerous conditions in a shed behind a multi-unit building in the 4600 block of Southwest 43rd Terrace, according to a Broward Sheriff’s Office complaint affidavit.
Pastro Park was charged with abuse of the elderly or disabled with bodily injury.
According to the affidavit, deputies responded on Sunday evening to a call about a landlord-tenant dispute involving Pastro Park.
The tenant told deputies that an elderly woman was living in the shed, apparently without food, water, air conditioning or toiletries, and that she needed medical attention, the affidavit said.
The deputies found Sei Park lying on a bed in the shed, “With injury to her head, worm burrowing into her neck, malnutritioned and dehydrated,” the affidavit said.
Pastro Park later told investigators he put his mother in the shed so he could rent out her room, according to Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Veda Coleman-Wright.
At Monday’s bond hearing, Pastro Park told Hurley he emigrated from Korea in 1997. He said he holds a part-time security position and works as a tutor at Broward College.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/crime/police-dania-man-put-sick-elderly-mom-in-1480296.html?cxtype=rss_news - -
so much for the canard about Asian societies revering the elderly.
Was he a poster here?!
“worm burrowing into her neck, ”
Florida’s got some crazy insects- about a hundred per square foot. Even the worms will attack.
BEN Stein lap dog to the elite
Without further ado, the top ten lines from Ben Stein’s article on Dominique Strauss-Kahn:
1.If he is such a womanizer and violent guy with women, why didn’t he ever get charged until now?
2.This is a case about the hatred of the have-nots for the haves, and that’s what it’s all about.
3.So far, he’s innocent, and he’s being treated shamefully. If he’s found guilty, there will be plenty of time to criticize him.
4.Can anyone tell me any economists who have been convicted of violent sex crimes?
5.Maybe Mr. Strauss-Kahn is guilty but if so, he is one of a kind, and criminals are not usually one of a kind.
6.He is one of the most recognizable people on the planet. Did he really have to be put in Riker’s Island?
7.A man pays $3,000 a night for a hotel room? He’s got to be guilty of something. Bring out the guillotine.
8.Was Riker’s Island really the place to put him on the allegations of one human being? Hadn’t he earned slightly better treatment than that?
9.Can anyone tell me of any heads of nonprofit international economic entities who have ever been charged and convicted of violent sexual crimes?
10.People accuse other people of crimes all of the time. What do we know about the complainant besides that she is a hotel maid?
Not that I don’t agree with innocent until proven guilty but there are some nice quotes in there
This is a case about the hatred of the have-nots for the haves, and that’s what it’s all about.
and
Was Riker’s Island really the place to put him on the allegations of one human being? Hadn’t he earned slightly better treatment than that?
FU Ben Stein. Hadn’t he earned his way to better treatment?. No he should be treated like everyone else accused of rape.
I suggest we put Ben Stein in the cell with him for a week so he can credibly write about the conditions.
I also like how he equates wealth and job titles to lack of criminality. I’d agree that richer people as a group commit less violent crime, but they do tend to commit more fraud and embezzlement. And they tend to get charged less frequently and convicted less frequently, that’s for sure.
Which criminals are worse? The lower class criminals that mug and rob hundreds and thousands of dollars, or the white collar criminals that steal sums that amount to the entire lifetime earnings of dozens or hundreds of families?
Hadn’t he earned his way to better treatment?
Translation: Don’t put him in with the nonwhites.
RE: Questions 6 and 8…
There it is folks, hanging out there for all to see in plain sight. If a working stiff was involved, they’d be sent to Riker’s. What’s really being said here?
What’s really being said here?
If it could happen to him, it could happen to me and my people.
Don’t be gettin’ uppity with your betters, serfs.
Ben Stein is wishy washy. Sometimes he will write eloquently about Free markets. Other times he will write eloquently about an overly regulated planned economy.
This was floating around on the internet…
What did Presidents Hoover , Truman, and Eisenhower have in common?
Back during the great depression, Herbert Hoover ordered the deportation of ALL illegal aliens in order to make jobs available to American citizens that desperately needed work.
Harry Truman deported over two million illegal aliens after WWII to create jobs for returning veterans.
In 1954 Dwight Eisenhower deported 13 million Mexicans. The program was called Operation Wetback. It was done so WWII and Korean veterans would have a better chance at jobs. It took two years, but they deported them!
Now if they could deport the illegal aliens back then, they could sure do it today. If you have doubts about the veracity of this information, enter Operation Wetback into your favorite search engine and confirm it for yourself.
Reminder: Don’t forget to pay your taxes - 12 to 20 million illegal aliens – are depending on you!
Uh oh, Carlos Santana wouldn’t be happy with you.
I however agree. Don’t know how we can keep shelling out the unemployment payola while we allow non legal status employees to be left in place.
Not to mention the steroidal level of effing and the consequent reproduction that goes on. Then dumping their kids on the taxpayer for support. These are bascially unwanted kids they’re birthing. Wanted only for the income they can bring. If they were really wanted, then the taxpayer wouldn’t have to pay for them.
lil Opie, 2 years 4 months…or… Cheney-Shrub, 8 years?
heheeeheeeheehaahaaahaaheeehaahaaa… (Hwy50™)
Obama as border cop: He’s deported record numbers of illegal immigrants:
By Lourdes Medrano, Correspondent / CS Monitor
In 2009, the United States deported a record 387,790 people – a 5 percent increase over 2008. Nearly two months before the end of the 2010 federal fiscal year, the deportation rate is down slightly from 2009, but the number of removals is still likely to be more than triple what it was in 2001.
The numbers come from a recently released study by Syracuse University in New York. Among the other significant findings: An increasing share of deportees are immigrants who have been convicted of a crime, reflecting President Obama’s desire to reorient the deportation process toward targeting criminals.
Tucson, Ariz.
A parade of states led by Arizona says the federal government is not doing enough to combat illegal immigration. But by one measure – deportations – the federal government is doing more than it has ever done.
Here in Tucson, there was a huge raid on human trafficking operations last spring. On Tax Day, in fact.
During the well-publicized raid, a (perhaps local) lady was heard to say, “How could Obama allow this to happen?”
In our local fishwrap’s online comments, she didn’t get too much sympathy. More than a few commenters had some not-so-nice things to say about her immigration status.
Cesar Chavez was supposedly against illegal aliens, for the very reason of them reducing farm worker wages.
Just read they are going to name a “cargo” ship after him,
“The newest cargo ship being built at NAASCO will be named the USNS Cesar Chavez after the late civil rights leader, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus confirmed Wednesday during a visit to the shipyard in Barrio Logan.”
This is a city considered to be somewhat less affected by the Not a Depression Recession with unemployment running a little over 8%.
Realtors report single-family housing market off 14.2 percent last month, compared to year ago
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/7570031.html
Single-family home sales fell 14.2 percent in April compared with a year earlier, according to a report released Tuesday by the Houston Association of Realtors. April’s drop in sales volume follows nine months where all but one — January - posted declines in year-over-year sales.
Anchorage woman charged with abusing 6 adopted kids:
By Yereth Rosen / ANCHORAGE, Alaska | Wed May 18, 2011
Anya James, 50, was arrested on Tuesday, accused of starving and imprisoning the children she adopted while collecting over $750,000 in subsidies from the state, police said.
The children were kept isolated from the outside world, police said.
They were home-schooled, confined to small rooms with alarm-rigged doors and windows and video cameras to prevent escapes, and forced to use a kitty litter bucket as a toilet, even though their house had three working bathrooms, police said.
She’ll make a great CEO when she gets out of prison.
Right eek-o, most of the presidents of the companies where I sourced forced us to use kitty litter boxes in our cubes. What a incorrigible commie you are. North Korea wants you.
Come down from the ivory tower and see what it’s really like.
“while collecting over $750,000 in subsidies from the state,”
No other state shovels out the government bennies like conservative Alaska.
You betcha!
Extreme Makeover’ Producers Conned By Couple
by Sean Daly
May 18th, 2011 | 2:38 PM |
Call it “Extreme Makeover: Fakeout Edition.”
A Las Vegas couple — claiming their two daughters suffered from potentially deadly immune deficiencies – allegedly conned producers of a popular ABC reality show into building them a new home with an elevator and solar powered swimming pool.
Now Chuck Cerda, a Department of Homeland Security officer, and his wife Terri are being investigated for child abuse.
In 2009, Ty Pennington and the team at “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” thought they were helping protect Molly, 10, and Maggie, 8, from dangerous germs their mother said could kill them.
The show leveled their mold-filled cookie-cutter home and replaced it with a state of the art oasis featuring high- tech air filtration systems and a gourmet kitchen. Burdened by high maintenance costs, the family quickly sold their new property and relocated to the Portland area.
http://xfinitytv.comcast.net/blogs/2011/extreme-makeover-home-edition/extreme-makeover-producers-conned-by-couple/?cmpid=FCST_hero - -
Disney’s dollar$ $trike once more!
I HATE that show and everything it stands for!
No you don’t. You are for self sacrifice from the will dos to the will nots.
Really? I didn’t know I was a Republican.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE68R40I20100928
(Reuters) - Senate Republicans blocked a Democratic bill on Tuesday to end tax deductions enjoyed by companies that close their U.S. plants and move overseas.
One of those house makeover projects happened here in Tucson. I think it was about three years ago.
I heard via the grapevine that the job site was an accident waiting to happen. There were that many safety violations. Fortunately, and I do mean fortunately, no one got hurt.
Filed under: “Behind closed doors”
Landmark ruling orders pension secrets revealed:
May 17th, 2011 / by Tony Saavedra, OC Register investigative reporter
The fight by public retirement systems throughout California to keep secret the names and pensions of retirees could be all but over, according to a precedent-setting appellate court decision last week.
The Watchdog had asked OCERS in 2009 for the names and pensions of retirees who collected at least $8,333 a month — $100,000 a year. It took nearly a year, plus the lawsuit, for us to finally get those records.
The data showed that 515 retirees in Orange County pocketed a total of $60 million in 2009. The top pensioners included sheriff-turned-federal prisoner Michael Carona, at $217,457 a year, and disgraced former treasurer Robert Citron, at $148,327.
The Sacramento Bee has asked for the names and benefits of all retirees.
With the appellate decision, seven courts throughout California have ruled that the names and pension benefits of public retirees are public information, Olson said. The latest ruling relied on the California Supreme Court’s decision that salaries of public workers must be disclosed. The panel of three appellate justices held that the retirement benefits should be handled the same way.
Most of the retirement systems have built their cases on the retirees’ right of privacy and a statute that says individual records of retirees are confidential. The appellate justices, like the lower courts, ruled that “individual records” meant information provided by the retiree — like social security numbers. Not all information held by the pension system was considered an “individual record,” jurists held.
Employees Retirement System.
The debate over public pensions has heated as government retirements became more and more lucrative, topped by police and fire benefits that allow employees to retire as early as age 50 with 90 percent of their salaries, assuming they work 30 years. Such pensions have prompted more employees to retire early and collect their pensions longer, contributing to the stress on a system that has been called unsustainable.
The pensions also encourage retirees to take other government jobs, collecting a paycheck with their retirement benefits, a practice called double-dipping.
8K a month?! 8K a friggin’ month! Pensions for criminals?! WTF?!!!!!
OK, now THAT’S worth getting angry about!
Bakersfried: oil, carrots & pesticide dust & … a new infestation!
BWAHAHAHicHAHAHicHAHAHAHAHicHAHAHic* (DennisN™)
Ho ho, hah hah, hehehehehehe, BwaHaHaAhHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! (Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb-thrower™)
Peek inside Schwarzenegger maid’s new home
May 18th, 2011, by Jeff Collins / OC Register
The woman identified as having former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s out-of-wedlock son reportedly retired as his housekeeper in January.
But six months earlier, she put nearly $49,000 down on four-bedroom, one-story home on a Bakersfield cul-de-sac.
Public records show that Mildred Patty Baena, identified as the boy’s mom, paid $268,000 for the home on July 8. She took out a $219,224 mortgage to buy the home, the records show.
The house is 17 years old. One unfortunate feature: A Google satellite image reveals that the corner lot backs up to two busy streets.
The Bakersfield Californian reported that the media have swarmed the home since tabloid website TMZ revealed Baena’s identity. The paper said that the northwest Bakersfield street “was the scene of at least two dozen media vehicles, including ones from NBC in Los Angeles, ‘Inside Edition’ and a British news service. Nearby streets were also inundated with media.”
According to Realtor.com, features in the 2,325-square-foot, tile-roofed residence include:
* Four bedrooms
* Two bathrooms
* An 11,761-square-foot lot
* A pool
* A detached garage
The Bakersfield Californian reported that the media have swarmed the home since tabloid website TMZ revealed Baena’s identity. The paper said that the northwest Bakersfield street “was the scene of at least two dozen media vehicles, including ones from NBC in Los Angeles, ‘Inside Edition’ and a British news service. Nearby streets were also inundated with media.”
And I’ll be the neighbors are just thrilled.
As some of my nearby neighbors were back in January. ‘Twas on the day that Rep. Giffords was transported to Houston from University Medical Center. I could hear the squadron of news helicopters all the way over here.
Closer to the hospital, the neighbors described something that sounded like a scene from “Apocalypse Now.” They were very glad when the motorcade left the hospital, with copters following behind.
TRUMP TO RUN FOR PRESIDENT OF FRANCE
Posted on Tuesday, May 17th, 2011
By Elsa Akesson
NEW YORK – Donald Trump will run for President in France next year.
After announcing he would not seek the Republican nomination for 2012 yesterday, Trump revealed today that he has not given up on his political aspirations. They have just crossed the pond.
He’s decided to pursue a run for president in France. Trump will face the incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy in next year’s election.
…
There could be some serendipity to follow DSK’s demise. I believe Lagarde was prominently featured in the Inside Job movie; if so, I like her approach.
A Favorite Emerges for Helm of I.M.F.
By LIZ ALDERMAN and KATRIN BENNHOLD
Published: May 18, 2011
PARIS — The French finance minister, Christine Lagarde, was on a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos this January when her usual smile turned into a frown. Next to her, Robert E. Diamond Jr., chief executive of Barclays and one of the most powerful bankers in the world, thanked regulators and finance ministers for their role in shaping a better environment after the financial crisis.
Ms. Lagarde looked him in the eye. “The best way for the banking sector to say thank you would be to actually have, you know, good financing of the economy, sensible compensation systems in place and reinforcement of their capital,” she replied, to a burst of applause.
Her straight talk has helped burnish Ms. Lagarde’s reputation as one of Europe’s most influential ambassadors in the world of international finance.
And now it is helping to make Ms. Lagarde, 55, perhaps the leading candidate to succeed her friend and colleague Dominique Strauss-Kahn as head of the International Monetary Fund. There is growing pressure on Mr. Strauss-Kahn to resign his post as the I.M.F.’s managing director to deal with charges of attempted rape, stemming from his encounter with a hotel maid in New York last Saturday.
Another of Ms. Lagarde’s selling points, though, may be one not listed on her résumé.
“What’s happened with Strauss-Kahn underscores how great it would be to have a woman in the role,” said Kenneth S. Rogoff, a former I.M.F. chief economist who is now a professor at Harvard University.
If she gets the post, Ms. Lagarde would be the first woman to run the I.M.F. — or any large international financial institution, for that matter. But Mr. Rogoff indicated gender was only part of her appeal.
“She is enormously impressive, politically astute and a strong personality,” he said. “At finance meetings all over the world, she is treated practically like a rock star.”
…
All Transactions Came to a Halt (Christine Lagarde, Finance Minister, France)
Uploaded by SonyPicturesClassics on Sep 1, 2010
From Academy Award® nominated filmmaker, Charles Ferguson (”No End In Sight”), comes INSIDE JOB, the first film to expose the shocking truth behind the economic crisis of 2008. The global financial meltdown, at a cost of over $20 trillion, resulted in millions of people losing their homes and jobs. Through extensive research and interviews with major financial insiders, politicians and journalists, INSIDE JOB traces the rise of a rogue industry and unveils the corrosive relationships which have corrupted politics, regulation and academia.
Reality is just barely beginning to hit the masses! I wonder how long it will take for the economists to catch on?
U.S. Housing May Not Recover Until 2014: Survey
By Prashant Gopal - May 18, 2011 10:00 AM PT
More than half of U.S. homeowners and renters say housing won’t recover until at least 2014, reflecting a deepening pessimism about the real estate market, according to a survey by Trulia Inc. and RealtyTrac Inc.
The survey, taken in April, found that 54 percent of respondents don’t expect a recovery for at least three years, up from 34 percent in November, the two real estate data companies said today. Those who see a turnaround by the end of next year fell to 15 percent from 27 percent.
The housing market is weakening as near record-low interest rates and falling prices fail to boost demand after the expiration of a federal tax credit for homebuyers last year. Values will come under more pressure as 1.8 million properties that are delinquent or in foreclosure are added to the inventory of unsold homes, according to a March estimate by CoreLogic Inc., a real estate information firm in Santa Ana, California.
“Demand remains weak, loans are increasingly difficult to qualify for and the shadow inventory of several million distressed properties is weighing down the market,” Rick Sharga, senior vice president at RealtyTrac in Irvine, California, said in a statement. “All of these things need to improve before housing can recover.”
…
Deflationary psychology is beginning to grip the U.S. housing market. Affordable prices may yet materialize if this viewpoint gains strength. (Too late for me, but perhaps my kids will benefit from a move towards affordability.)
Chart of the Day: The Plummet in Housing Market Sentiment
By Daniel Indiviglio
May 18 2011, 2:21 PM ET
Polls are sometimes irrelevant. For example, a poll about whether most people think global warming is a problem won’t make it any more or less a problem in actuality. That’s up to science, not popular opinion. But in economics, sentiment does matter, as it can drive demand, which has a very real effect. So when a new poll reveals that housing market sentiment has plummeted since just last November, it could have significant implications.
According to the latest Trulia/RealtyTrac/Harris Interactive foreclosure attitude poll, Americans have become much more pessimistic about the housing market:
(CHART APPEARS HERE IN LINKED ARTICLE)
One common immediate reaction to this chart would be serious concern. More than half of Americans don’t see a housing recovering until 2014 or later. Presumably, they won’t be crazy about buying a home until the market is near recovery, which is to say that you can take them out of the equation until at least 2013. Another 24% doesn’t see the market recovering until 2013. So take them out of the equation for the rest of this year and next year. That leaves a measly 23% of Americans who are optimistic about the housing market recovering in the relative near-term.
What looks even worse is that in November, just five months earlier, the sentiment was much cheerier. At that time, just 34% thought the market would continue to struggle through the end of 2013. In April, that percentage increased to 54%. And that entire 20% increase pushed people from the two most optimistic categories into the more pessimistic categories.
However, there’s also an alternative way to look at this poll. Perhaps some of these people are just thinking, “Well, the housing market is rough right now, but I think it will be better in X years.” In April, that for that X to be three, the percentage was 54%. In November, however, the percentage of people who thought the housing market would be better in three years was 58% (the percentage who thought the housing market would be better in 2013 or later).
…
Glad to know our “strong dollar policy” has opened the floodgate to foreign buyers who want to snap up American homes at fire sale prices. Meanwhile, American families in many cases remain priced out.
May 18, 2011, 4:11 PM ET
Foreign Buyers Getting Firesale Prices on U.S. Housing
By Kathleen Madigan
For U.S. homeowners, the family moving in next door could be Canadian. Or Chinese.
U.S. real estate, especially on the high end, is getting support from international buyers. If U.S. buyers find homes attractively priced, global buyers are finding a fire sale once exchange rates are figured in.
According to a report released Wednesday by the National Association of Realtors, foreign clients spent about $41 billion in U.S. housing in the 12 months ended in March 2011. Individuals with visas to stay for more than 6 months purchased an additional $41 billion. Taken together, that’s about 8% of the total U.S. housing market.
Foreign buyers are more likely to buy on the high end of the market. The report notes that the average purchase price paid by an international buyer was $315,000 compared to the overall U.S. average of $218,000. (Read related Journal coverage.)
International buyers are also more likely to pay cash, in part because they face difficulties getting U.S.-based financing. The report said 62% of foreign buyers used all cash. In recent months, about one-third of existing-home sales were all cash.
What is interesting is that more international buyers are going downmarket. The NAR says in the latest year 45% of the international sales were under $200,000. That share is up from 28% in 2007.
“Almost 80% of realtors reported that the value of the dollar had an impact on international sales” the NAR says.
“When the dollar depreciates against the euro it also tends to depreciate against other currencies, so overall the U.S. home buying market has become increasingly attractive to international purchasers, ” the report says.
…
WTF!?
Desert golf course owner to build thousands of homes
10:00 PM PDT on Wednesday, May 18, 2011
By KIMBERLY PIERCEALL
The Press-Enterprise
Canadian investors in a golf course near Desert Hot Springs plan to build 1,500 homes and 900 condos for vacationers around the greens and hope part of the more than $200 million it may cost could come from foreign investors through the EB-5 Visa program.
Glen Brayshaw and Mike Nyhuis bought Desert Dunes Golf Course in November 2009 after a search on the Internet revealed it was on sale.
More recently, the two have been buying up land surrounding the golf course and expect the deals to close by July.
The EB-5 program allows foreigners to invest a minimum amount in a project that must generate a certain number of full-time jobs over a period of time. In return, the investors receive a green card.
Riverside County is helping the two establish an EB-5 regional center to facilitate the foreign funding, Brayshaw said.
He said he expects that to generate a third of the funding they’ll need. The rest will come from a real estate investment trust formed in Canada and from developers who buy the right to build single-family homes on their property.
Brayshaw said he and his business partner will be focused on building the vacation condos.
The pair’s other development project was a resort in Canmore, Alberta.
At a foreign trade awards event presented by Riverside County’s Economic Development Agency, officials credited the Canadian investors with saving Inland jobs.
The course has about 37 employees.
The golf course had shut down and was in receivership before the Canadian investors stepped in, reopening it shortly after.
Buyers expect 38% foreclosure discount
BY FRANCINE KNOWLES Business Reporter/fknowles@suntimes.com
May 18, 2011 9:35PM
Americans expect to pay 38 percent less to buy a foreclosed home compared to a similar home not in foreclosure, a new RealtyTrac survey finds.
That’s not far above the average discount of 36 percent on sales of bank-owned homes compared to sales of homes not in foreclosure revealed in a RealtyTrac 2010 market report.
The poll also found among adult respondents:
†45 percent think the government isn’t doing enough to prevent foreclosures.
†30 percent say they have or know someone who has stopped paying their mortgage, foreclosed, walked away or short sold their home; or applied for or received a loan modification.
†56 percent of renters and 47 percent of current homeowners are at least somewhat likely to purchase a foreclosed home.
†54 percent believe the housing market recovery will not happen until 2014 or later.
Foreclosure petitions rise for 2d month
But for year so far, Mass. figure down
By Jenifer B. McKim
Globe Staff / May 18, 2011
In April lenders began the process of seizing Massachusetts homes at a faster rate for the second straight month, a sign that foreclosures could rise again, according to some housing specialists.
The 1,192 foreclosure petitions filed last month marked a nearly 14 percent increase over March and was the highest monthly total since September, according to data released yesterday by Warren Group, a Boston company that tracks local real estate. A petition is typically triggered when a homeowner is more than three months behind on mortgage payments, and is the first step in the foreclosure process.
For the year, however, petitions are still down 58.6 percent compared with the first four months of 2010, Warren Group said.
Property takings across the United States slowed last year following widespread concerns about flawed and illegal foreclosures, causing major lenders such as Bank of America Corp. to halt proceedings temporarily while they examined their internal procedures. But economists were quick to warn that the lull did nothing to solve the nation’s foreclosure crisis, which has crippled the housing market.
“Banks are picking up their foreclosure activity,’’ said Nadine Cohen, a managing attorney with the Greater Boston Legal Services, a nonprofit that works with low-income clients. “The economy is never going to improve until we deal with the foreclosure crisis.’’
…
How is it again that a bunch of Wall Street investment banks ended up in the mortgage banking business? They clearly are miserably inept.
Chase gets an earful
Annual meeting draws hundreds faulting bank over foreclosures
Wednesday, May 18, 2011 08:51 AM
By Mark Williams
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
People and groups from across the country showed up outside the JPMorgan Chase shareholders meeting to say banks aren’t doing enough to keep people in their homes.
Frustrated that JPMorgan Chase hasn’t modified her mortgage, Virginia Holwell came all the way from Illinois to take her complaint straight to the top.
“I’m in danger of losing my home,” Holwell told the bank’s chairman and CEO, Jamie Dimon, at the bank’s annual shareholders meeting in Columbus yesterday. She asked for help for not just her, but thousands of other homeowners across the country who she said are in the same position.
Like many other banks’ annual meetings across the country, Chase’s shareholders’ meeting was dominated by the company’s mortgage-handling practices. The meeting was held at the bank’s McCoy Center at Polaris instead of its New York home base, a nod to the company’s 17,000 central Ohio employees.
Dimon acknowledged during the meeting that the company could have done a better job handling foreclosures.
He also apologized for foreclosing on homes of some military families. He said those errors have been corrected.
“We’re doing everything we can to keep people in their homes,” Dimon said. “I know we have made a lot of mistakes. We do understand what you’re talking about.”
Representatives of community groups who attended the meeting repeatedly accused Chase of failing to help its mortgage-holders avoid foreclosure. The bank, like other major lenders, has been accused of using “robo-signers” to complete paperwork on foreclosures without reading the documents or verifying ownership of the mortgage notes.
“The fact is, Chase is not doing enough to help people stay in their homes,” said Kevin Stein, associate director of the California Reinvestment Coalition in San Francisco.
“We really need for Chase to be better.”
Hundreds of protesters demonstrated outside the meeting in a cold rain, some carrying signs that read “Make banks pay.”
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Bank forecloses on house of former Kings star Luc Robitaille
A failed business partnership with a since-jailed financier left Robitaille, a Hall of Famer, responsible for a $2-million line of credit. Robitaille is not expected to lose his house or his executive job with the Kings.
May 18, 2011, 5:17 p.m.
The aftermath of a soured business partnership between Hockey Hall of Famer Luc Robitaille and jailed financier William “Boots” Del Biaggio III that left Robitaille responsible for a $2-million line of credit has led a bank to foreclose on the Santa Monica home owned by Robitaille, a longtime favorite of Kings fans and president of the club’s business operations.
Robitaille, however, isn’t expected to lose the home and won’t lose his job while he settles his financial obligations.
“I have nothing to hide,” Robitaille said Wednesday. He otherwise declined to comment on the foreclosure action, which was first reported Tuesday by TMZ.com. TMZ did not identify the bank.
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The situation has to be topsy-turvy for me to agree with Karl Rove on anything!
OPINION
MAY 19, 2011
Washington’s Robo-Signing Bank Heist
The administration wants a $20 billion slush fund to ‘help’ homeowners.
By KARL ROVE
At last Wednesday’s “CBS Town Hall,” President Obama said he was “trying to . . . figure out how we can get the banks to do more” on modifying mortgage loan payments. Perhaps, he said, people whose mortgages are underwater should get a “principal reduction, which will be good for the person who owns . . . the home.”
Mr. Obama has decided that taxpayers have no appetite for bailing out homeowners who don’t make their payments, or for rescuing those whose homes are worth less than their mortgages. Instead, he’s backing a proposal by his Department of Justice and state attorneys general to force major banks to cough up the dough.
The money would come from a settlement with JP Morgan Chase, Citibank, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and other banks accused of “robo-signing,” in which foreclosure documents were signed by bank employees or agents without properly certifying all the papers. The attorneys general admit that virtually no one was erroneously foreclosed upon because of robo-signing. The banks foreclosed on people who were on average 18 months delinquent, and after multiple attempts to modify the loan had been tried and failed.
But Justice and the state attorneys general are demanding $20 billion for sloppiness, which they will then be able to hand out to voters—and potential supporters. The money won’t come from the banks; it will come from their customers, millions of whom will pay more in fees and interest and will, in some cases, be denied credit.
This stinks. It’s not only corrupt, it’s bad policy.
The proposed settlement says that only homeowners behind in their payments are eligible for relief. But roughly 90% of underwater borrowers are current, so reducing the mortgage balances of delinquent borrowers would create an incentive for responsible borrowers not to pay. Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller has tried convincing other state attorneys generals to follow him in establishing a hotline to provide advice on how to tap a “Foreclosure Relief Fund.”
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West Coast Foreclosures Counterintuitive After Robo-Signing Fixes
05/17/2011
By: Carrie Bay
Foreclosure activity slowed in April in states along the country’s West Coast, but a local firm that tracks every pre-foreclosure notice, foreclosure auction, and foreclosure sale in the area is having trouble making sense of what it says is an unexpected trend.
According to market analysis released Tuesday by Discovery Bay, California-based ForeclosureRadar, foreclosure filings last month were down in Arizona, California, Nevada, and Washington, with Oregon being the sole exception where filings were up.
In fact, filings in California dropped to levels not seen since late 2008, when intervention by the state government to give homeowners in default more time to explore alternatives to foreclosure caused a massive drop in activity.
The company says foreclosure sales saw similar declines throughout its five-state coverage area, except in Washington. Notably, cancellations were up significantly across the board, leaving fewer properties scheduled for trustee sale.
“The drop in filings, and the rise in cancellations, is surprising,” said Sean O’Toole, CEO and founder of ForeclosureRadar. “Banks have had time to resolve robo-signing issues, so we should be seeing exactly the opposite results, with lenders starting to catch up from recent delays.”
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Published: May 17, 2011
Updated: 12:47 p.m.
Time to foreclose California home: 312 days
By MARILYN KALFUS
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Foreclosure filings in California fell to lows not seen since the fall of 2008. Notices of default declined 25.8%, and notices of trustee sale – in which an auction is scheduled – were down 10.9% from March. Foreclosure filings were down year over year, too, with notices of default down 28% and notices of trustee sale falling 31.2% from last April. Cancellations of auctions went up 27 %, and there were 17.2% fewer properties going back to banks and a 15.8 percent fewer purchased by investors. The average time to foreclose continued to climb, increasing 3.3% to 312 days.
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Oregon: A Foreclosure Anomaly In The West
in News > Mortgage Servicing
by MortgageOrb.com on Wednesday 18 May 2011
Foreclosure filings fell in several Western states last month, ForeclosureRadar reports. While filings decreased in California, Arizona, Nevada and Washington, they actually rose substantially - 236.2% - in Oregon.
Also up significantly last month were foreclosure cancellations, the data provider says.
“The drop in filings, and the rise in cancellations, is surprising,” says Sean O’Toole, CEO and founder of ForeclosureRadar.com. “Banks have had time to resolve robo-signing issues, so we should be seeing exactly the opposite results, with lenders starting to catch up from recent delays.”
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The Financial Times
Don’t close the lid on bank fraud
By John Gapper
Published: May 18 2011 22:21 | Last updated: May 18 2011 22:21
The news this week that Eric Schneiderman, the New York attorney-general has launched yet another inquiry into Wall Street’s role in the mortgage crisis will no doubt be greeted with groans at investment banks. Four years – and multiple investigations – after the meltdown started at two Bear Stearns hedge funds, isn’t it time to move on?
I think not, for there is still work to be done. With the exceptions of Bernard Madoff and Raj Rajaratnam, no senior Wall Street executive has faced criminal charges, although some in the industry – whether at the top or in the middle – probably broke the law. Such criminality may be hard to pin down after all this time, but it is worth the effort.
There is an element of grandstanding in Mr Schneiderman’s foray – Eliot Spitzer, the former New York attorney-general, parlayed his crackdown after the internet bubble into becoming governor (before his downfall). Wall Street remains unpopular after the bail-out and politicians see opportunity there.
But it is right to expect Wall Street to face justice for any criminal acts – or civil offences – and little evidence that it has reached the executive suite. A criminal inquiry into the conduct of Angelo Mozilo, former head of Countrywide, was dropped earlier this year. Other Wall Street chief executives such as Richard Fuld, the former head of Lehman Brothers, have not faced even civil charges.
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The Financial Times
Hopes for ‘short sales’ of US homes falter
By Suzanne Kapner in New York
Published: May 18 2011 23:00 | Last updated: May 18 2011 23:00
Banks are stumbling in efforts to clear inventories of unsold US homes through a strategy known as “short sales” – in which distressed borrowers are given approval to sell properties for less than the value of their mortgages.
Market-watchers say an unexpectedly large number of prospective home buyers are walking away from such deals rather than endure a closing process that is so complicated it can take up to two years to complete.
Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, said such short sales have accounted for only 10 per cent of home sales this year – half as much as he expected. Movoto, an online firm that connects home buyers with local real estate agents, said about one-fifth of short sales were falling through.
The results are disappointing bankers and economists who had hoped that short sales would continue to gain in popularity as a way for distressed borrowers to settle their debts and banks to clear their books of troubled loans.
Mark Brandemuehl, Movoto’s vice-president of marketing, said: “The main problem is getting the bank to agree on the terms of the sale.
“There is a list of 50 things that have to be negotiated, including whether there will be forgiveness on the loan, and getting that list down to zero can take for ever.”
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The Financial Times
Japan falls back into recession
By Mure Dickie in Tokyo
Published: May 19 2011 03:34 | Last updated: May 19 2011 03:34
Japan slipped back into recession after the economy contracted sharply in the first quarter, underscoring the vulnerability of the world’s third-largest economy which has been battered by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
Gross domestic product fell 0.9 per cent in the first quarter compared with the previous three months, according to preliminary government data, even though the natural disaster struck Japan less than three weeks before the end of the period.
The decline follows a contraction in the final quarter of last year and will probably strengthen calls for greater government spending on relief and reconstruction, despite widespread worries about the impact of the extra borrowing required on an already highly indebted state.
The GDP contraction – equivalent to a 3.7 per cent fall on an annualised basis – was nearly twice as big as forecast by news agency surveys of economists.
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Amy Hoak’s Home Economics
May 18, 2011, 5:33 p.m. EDT
The higher costs of strategic mortgage default
Plus, why the number of people walking away from mortgages isn’t going up
By Amy Hoak, MarketWatch
CHICAGO (MarketWatch) — Homeowners considering strategic default need to know this before taking the leap: The fact that you could have continued paying your mortgage, but chose not to, could mean you’ll face harsher consequences than those who defaulted out of hardship.
Defaulting on a mortgage generally means a severe hit to your credit score, said Joanne Gaskin, FICO’s director of mortgage markets. And that’s the same whether you lost your job and couldn’t afford the payments or if you decided your mortgage was so far underwater that you stopped paying and eventually ended up in foreclosure.
Someone with a 720 FICO score could move into the 580s after a mortgage loan default, she said. It could take seven years to get back to the starting score, “assuming all other trade lines were paid as agreed.”
But here’s the thing: When buying another home or even renting one, lenders and landlords may be more discriminating about the type of default you have on your record, she said.
And they don’t take kindly to strategic defaulters.
“Credit remains very tight across the board, so lenders, landlords are looking for pretty pristine credit,” she said. “There’s leeway somewhere if someone had an explainable life event, a one-time blemish on their record that is pretty explainable.”
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